“The message embedded in the film is extremely captivating and genuinely complex, and perverse in the best way possible.”

When it comes to filmmakers who position themselves as provocateurs, there is generally an unspoken line that very few of them are willing to cross. The likes of John Waters, Pedro Almodóvar and Rainer Werner Fassbinder all flirted dangerously close to crossing it but showed enough restraint to stop themselves just before going too far. Two filmmakers who took a more devil-may-care approach to this boundary, and would gleefully cross it with seemingly very little hesitation, are Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bruce LaBruce, two filmmakers who apparently could not be more different in terms of period (Pasolini died several years before LaBruce stepped behind a camera) or style, yet shared the same fondness for pushing boundaries further than they perhaps ought to have gone. Yet, their wildly disparate careers have collided in the form of The Visitor, in which LaBruce directs a version of Pasolini’s Teorema, which many consider to be the late Italian master’s most subversive work, if not his most challenging in terms of the themes that it evokes. LaBruce carries many of these ideas over to The Visitor, which follows a similar premise, exploring the dynamic between an upper-class family and the visitor who goes from a pleasant guest to the root of their social downfall and eventual liberation, all through challenging their perceptions and daring them to bypass the status quo, along which they carefully curated their lavish but otherwise dull lives.

LaBruce is nothing if not wildly ambitious, and as we see throughout The Visitor, he is more than willing to forego decency for the sake of conveying a particular message. From its first moments, where the titular character washes up in a suitcase on the Thames River, we are aware that this film is going to be something very different, and one that will proudly court controversy. The narration delivers a passionate manifesto warning against the dangers of immigration, while we watch this character emerge as if he was hatching from a shell, in an extremely striking depiction of the immigrant experience. This is followed by over an hour of scenes that push the boundaries of decency in creative and often uncomfortable ways. The entirety of the second act consists of lengthy sequences of explicit sexual content, as we watch the visitor methodically seduce every member of this family. LaBruce combines his clear admiration for Pasolini (even going so far as to recreate imagery reminiscent of some of the more famous sequences in Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom) with his artistic sensibility. He evokes a trance-like atmosphere through the use of unconventional filming techniques, intercut with blinding colours and discordant electronic music, placing us under the same spell that hypnotizes the protagonist’s victims. LaBruce is one of the rare filmmakers who understand that repulsion in the viewer can be repurposed into quite a powerful artistic tool, and through utilising his clear aptitude with the art of excess, the director crafts an explicit but still quite compelling dark comedy that uses the human body to comment on and critique certain abstract ideas.

The reason a few notable directors were mentioned above in relation to LaBruce is not arbitrary. Queer cinema has had a lengthy journey, and a lot of the pioneering works exist in dialogue with one another. Perhaps it may not seem obvious for a borderline pornographic project to carry meaning, but as we have seen in many of the director’s more celebrated works, there is virtue in pushing boundaries. Like his artistic forerunners and peers, LaBruce has made a career out of using shocking, sexual imagery as a way to comment on and critique society. This is what much of queer art sets out to achieve, namely the systematic and gradual deconstruction of the status quo. In a memorable scene, the characters passionately reflect on their encounters with our nameless protagonist, and remark on how his sexual vigour has not only changed their outlook on their sexual identity but thrown the entire class system (represented in the image of the servant and master, a frequent motif) into complete disarray. Much as the sexual encounters cross the boundary between art and pornography, the story demonstrates the ambiguity between pleasure and exploitation, and eventually becomes a statement on power. A clear timeline is formed in terms of these interpersonal encounters: desire intertwines with seduction, which in turn spirals into obsession and manipulation, with our protagonist going from mere guest to arguably the most powerful member of this household. The shift in the dynamic between these characters (portrayed exceptionally by this cast of intrepid actors, who are mostly performance artists) sets the foundation for the film and establishes a much more complex set of ideas, beyond the crude and explicit sexual content that drives most of the film.

The Visitor devolves into a scathing critique of bourgeois servitude and the objectification of labour as a commodity. The film makes use of frank and uncompromising depictions of sexuality, and interweaves them with commentary on class and status, leading to a psychedelic dark comedy that combines elements of psychological horror and tense melodrama. The often-verbose dialogue exists to underline the arrogance of the world in which these characters exist, and it all combines to become a brilliantly subversive experimental film that is both chaotic and tense, all sense of logic disappearing once the final act arrives. Filled with sexual content that is extremely explicit, the film disregards the idea of tasteful examinations of sexuality and instead engages in the most carnal expression of desire. Filling the screen with primal screams and depictions of animalistic urges, which are reworked to set the foundation for this blisteringly funny and often extremely surreal dark comedy, LaBruce presents an unconventional but hypnotic film that offers us a wildly different perspective on a subject we have all encountered before, perhaps just not in such a crude, explicit form. The resulting film is an acquired taste, but a fascinating entry into the New Queer Cinema movement that LaBruce has continuously worked to preserve. While it can be quite challenging, The Visitor has several intriguing ideas simmering beneath the surface, and for those with patience (and the willpower to make it through some of the more explicit sequences), the time is certainly well-spent, since the message embedded in the film is extremely captivating and genuinely complex, and perverse in the best way possible.

Image copyright: LaBruce / A/POLITICAL