Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.How does an actor shake off the burdensome mantle of Bond? One way is to move to Mexico, adopt a diet of hard liquor and hard drugs, and vigorously perform fellatio on screen. This is the approach adopted by Daniel Craig in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, a colourful and suitably trippy adaptation of William S Burroughs’ follow-up of sorts to the better-known Junkie.If homoerotic tension bubbled under the surface of Guadagnino’s Challengers earlier this year, here it is boiling urgently from the beginning. William Lee (Craig) is a permanently sweaty and predatory fiftyish man constantly making eyes at and advances on younger men among a community of American expats. He reeks of desperation and booze, his sibilant diction sometimes bringing to mind Kevin Spacey. But with his quick wit and silver tongue, he frequently scores. It may be the 1940s, but here in Mexico City nobody bothers to keep their predilections private. Portly bar-owner Frank (a delightful Jason Schwartzman) doesn’t mind having “El puto gringo” scrawled on his wall because “it pays to advertise”.Guadagnino adopts a style that mixes the seedy with suave stylings of classic Hollywood. The period costumes are on point, smoke curls elegantly from cigarettes and Justin Kuritzkes’ script crackles with snappy, urbane dialogue.But there are less congruent touches too. The eclectic and evocative soundtrack ranges from New Order to frequent use of Nirvana, an obscure B-side burbling anachronistically from a 1940s jukebox. There are also visual hints of more metaphysical elements to come. At one point, lost in reverie, Lee’s face dissolves into jittering scan lines of TV interference. At another, he extends a phantom hand to caress an elusive crush.He is the standoffish Eugene (Drew Starkey), who even Lee can’t confirm as gay, let alone seduce — and thus finds irresistible. The younger man is compared to baked Alaska — hot on the outside, cold on the inside, growing ever chillier the stronger Lee comes on with offers of a trip to the Amazon. “What have you got to lose?” Lee presses. The cool answer: “Independence.”In time, Lee will be faced with the withdrawal of both affection and heroin, both of which serve to suppress his demons. For all his unabashed appetites, he still carries the baggage of intense self-loathing. “Could it be that I was one of those subhuman things?” he recalls wondering about his dawning sexuality.This complex churn of emotions demands much from Craig, and he proves equal to the task. It is a pleasure to see him so loosey-goosey after his tightly controlled 15-year turn as 007 and he gives possibly his finest performance to date. Which makes it all the more dismaying that the film becomes wayward in its final act as Lee embarks on a quixotic mission to find the mysterious drug yajé, better known to 21st-century self-discoverers as ayahuasca.By the time Lesley Manville turns up as a kooky jungle botanist, offering hospitality at gunpoint and under the watchful gaze of a sloth, the mood has lurched towards the cartoonish. Unsurprisingly, the introduction of mind-altering substances does nothing to quell this. “Yajé is a mirror,” she advises. “You may not like what you see.” Indeed not.If you’ve ever sat through someone’s account of an ayahuasca session, you know what to expect. But any drug experience must come with a comedown and it’s not enough to undo the highs of everything that has gone before — a frantic rush of hedonism suffused with a beautiful melancholy.★★★★☆Festival continues to September 7, labiennale.org
