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Now Apocalypse
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Gregg Araki is a director who sticks to his signature
style and content. Entering the spotlight with the ultra-low-budget The Living End (1992) as part of the
American New Queer Cinema explosion of that time, Araki swiftly set out the
panoply of his obsessions. Transgressive sexuality (all combinations of bodies
are possible), punk nihilism (our world is surely doomed) and unhinged conspiracy
theories (aliens are infiltrating the system) – all wrapped in a flagrantly
cartoonish style (with an emphasis on garish primary colours), and speckled
with a thousand and one current pop culture references. (You can watch a
wonderful audiovisual essay by Laura Lammer that boils it all down here.) The Doom Generation (1995) marked, in
those years, the best of his breathless die-young-stay-pretty fantasias.
In the period since, only once has Araki really veered
toward anything resembling the cinema mainstream – the delightful stoner comedy Smiley Face (2007), which also
happens to be his best film, in no small part due to the prodigious
inventiveness of its star, Anna Faris. And only twice has Araki’s general love
for everything fast-paced, hedonistic and superficial given way to darker,
underlying themes of abuse and broken families, in Mysterious Skin (2004) and the underrated White Bird in a
Blizzard (2014).
Araki has also dabbled in television, assigned to
episodes of Red Oaks, Riverdale, Heathers and even the dreadful 13
Reasons Why – whether he likes it or not, he has become associated with the
reigning nostalgia for 1980s teenpics. But he never seems entirely at ease in
this line of work. Thanks to an
opportunity provided by executive producers Steven Soderbergh and Gregory
Jacobs, Araki plunged in and shot 10 x 30 minute episodes of Now Apocalypse in 40 days – and, one
assumes, in total creative freedom. The cast includes Avan Jogia and Roxane
Mesquida (from Philippe Grandrieux’s Despite
the Night [2015]), with hip singer-activist Henry Rollins making a cameo.
Written by Araki with trendy sexologist Karley
Sciortino (of Slutever blog fame), Now Apocalypse is an in-your-face parade
of polysexual humping, lurid design schemes, lifestyle satire, and – peeking in
now and again, and still completely unresolved by the end of season 1 – a
grand, overarching plot line involving (you guessed it) aliens, conspiracy and
the looming end of humankind.
In the generally static crawl of this director’s
career, it’s Kaboom (2010) territory
all over again. But the editing structure of most episodes – frantically
intercutting between three separate, simultaneous interactions, and finding the
ironic echoes and correspondences between them – generates much wicked fun, and
almost dares us to forget that the story is (traditionally) meant to lead
somewhere conclusive.
For the moment, this season has proved to be a one-off:
Starz cancelled the show in July 2019, and Araki is said to be shopping it
around elsewhere. We’ll see.
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