Pink Narcissus

Have little doubt, like it or loathe it, Pink Narcissus is a classic of the cult variety, lauded for its high artistic cinematic quality, position and production. It is a visual fantasia of expression, colour, eroticism, sexuality and stimulating contemporary artistry. Pink Narcissus is no shrinking violet, no wilting wallflower, it is a full on meadow in full bloom. This low budget film took a number of years to complete and filmed, mostly, within the tight confines of writer and director James Bidgood's New York apartment. There is little in the way of plot lines or subplots, the story is as flimsy as Dick Van Dyke's accent, dialogue is virtually non-existent for this 1971 offering is all about the erotic images fostering themselves on the screen.

Bobby Kendall plays the 'kept boy' who whiles away his hours waiting for his master by dreaming of various things, he seems a young fellow obsessed with his own beauty and physical appearance, but maybe you guessed that already by the title? He envisions himself as a Turkish prince, a Roman slave, a wood nymph, a matador and even a kept boy in some far off sheiks harem. Everything is so incredulously heavy on the design front, bejewelled and stylised to excess. It is that excess, that visually expressiveness that has made this little independent movie become a landmark of gay cinema as well as a statement of contemporary art.

It still stands the test of time as classic of the art of gay movie making.

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This production fits into the category of art more than it does video, film or cinema. It's not something you'd see at the theater at the mall; there's no dialogue, and there's no "story," or at least not one that fits neatly into our cinematic paradigm. Rather, this is an hour-or-so-long kaleidoscopic arrangement of sounds and colors and forms in the background and teasingly partial revelations of the male body in the foreground. The "art," in imitating life, leads us to Bobby Kendall narcissistically looking in a mirror, being a matador, flying and fantasizing. Actually, you could link Pink Narcissus to one category in our cinematic paradigm: Suspense. Viewers who like the male body will be in suspense for an hour, dying to see just another inch of Bobby Kendall's body.

A beautifully imagined gay erotic film from the psychedelic era Although release date is given as 1971...Images & photo sets appeared on the market& gay interest magazines as far back as 1964...Film involves a young beautiful gay mans fantasies...involving moslty himself with mirror images of nude & semi nude model,Bobby Kendall. The young man invisions himself in many erotic beautifully photographed sequences.. many with the psychedelic colors etc of the 1960s.. Young man envisions himself in as a matador, as a roman slave, in an middle east sultans tent.. etc.. all scenes involving simulated sex and masturbation are beautifully & tastefully photographed... Definitely for adults !! and mature audiences only..Very happy that this gay early erotic film has been resurrected, and released on VHS & DVD thanks to Strand distributors! Not just nostalgia however,It is a beautifully done erotic film which should be seen by mature audiences.. Credits are not clear? writer ,director, photographer are listed as anonymous only Style is remindful of the type of film Andy Warhol was making at the time..known than as "underground" movies...Recommended highly for mature audiences who have an interest in psychedelia, & early gay films!

I don't know why the rating for this is so low -- well, that's not true, I do know: it's arty, it's got no dialogue (we have radio weather forecasts in lieu of that), it's in grainy pink, and it doesn't have a story. But it is a successful glimpse into a gay dream, and a successful passing on of that experience -- and the title character, a wonderfully objectified youth, is the perfect gay ideal: pouty lips, messy brown hair, dark features, a fantastic and well-exploited rear, and a sculpted body. And he's unclothed for most of it, a Caravaggio boy.

The film is a good example of ingenuity on the director's part -- it's a small-scale melodrama not unlike those of Guy Maddin, if Maddin was more lushly sensual and less manically comic. It's not a porno, but it is extreme gayness, and the mere essence of that is enough for some people to get it up. But regardless, it is very erotic; a number of scenes (stripping the boy's undies off, sucking his own fingers, slowly humping the ground in nature) push the right buttons. There are some inventive scenes, like the boy getting a beejay from a leather man swimming in a milky liquid (and then after that a urinal-fetish scene). I haven't seen "Un chant d'amour," so I don't know the degree to which this is influenced by Genet, but it does have its parallels to the Genet-inspired third of "Poison." 9/10

Created by photographer James Bidgood, PINK NARCISSUS is a lush, exotic, and remarkably beautiful erotic fantasia that explores the face and body of model Bobby Kendal as he slips in and out of erotic fantasies--fantasies which range from bullfights with himself as a matador and the bull as a leather-clad motorcyclist to being held captive for the pleasures of an Arabian ruler. Both the the apartment in which the character lives and the daydreams into which he slips are remarkably designed, recalling such artists as Parrish and Klimt, and the film emphasizes the tactile nature of everything it displays; one of the most memorable moments in the film, for example, are photographs of beads in motion that eventually segue into an erotic dance. The camera also explores Kendall's exceptional face and body in the same tactile manner, and whatever his actual virtues as a legitimate performer might be he is perfectly at ease with the camera's voyeuristic joy, and the resulting images are powerful, memorable, and virtually define the term "erotic art."

It might be supposed that this film appeals primarily to a gay audience, but over the years I have shown it to a great number of friends--male, female, gay, straight--and their response has always been one of fascination; the film exerts a hypnotic allure that few can resist. At the same time, however, I must note several things about the film that some may dislike.

If you expect a purely "skin show" type film or simple pornography, PINK NARCISSUS is likely to frustrate, for it works its magic more via tantalization than blatant nudity; at the same time, however, there is enough graphic behavior in the film to give it an X rating even today. It is also a purely visual film (there is no dialogue of any kind), and it is very much an experimental "underground" 1970s film; as such, it actually does require a certain degree of intellectual effort and interpretation. These aspects of the film may leave some viewers cold, but those able to enter into its sensual world will find it a powerful bit of erotica. Recommended.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer