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DESPERATE
LIVING Desperate Living is the most lurid of the triage of 35mm trash films John Waters directed in the seventies and it doesn’t even have Divine in it! Thank Waters’ demented imagination and his ability to get his actors to emote brilliant cheesy dialogue. But also thank set designer Vincent Peranio, whose festering Mortville, Maryland is akin to a garbage truck flipping over on a N.O.W. meeting, skidding into a porno store, and coming to rest on an orphanage of Thalidomide babies. Mortville’s shantytown ambience of cockroaches, dead rats, rabies, S&M clubs, and miscreants in rubbish is unsettling as are the residents’ “romantic” scenes. Delight in recoiling from those, brave viewer. Beyond the queasiness lurks a fun fairy tale of good vs. evil with insurgent lesbians and nudists fighting tyranny. Waters’ fable is complete with a storybook castle in which the oppressive, and somewhat retarded, Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey) reigns over a goon squad who have floppy, tiny penises (a trademark in Waters’ Triage of Trash era). A commentary on class war and downtrodden immigrants facing a “Holiday of Death,” Desperate Living is the trash Grapes of Wrath. Mink Stole gives the
performance of her career as wealthy, neurotic suburbanite, Peggy Gravel.
Her delusional rant in the film’s first few minutes is CLASSIC
(“OH GOD, THE CHILDREN ARE HAVING SEX!”). Not only is The
Rant one of the most comical moments in any Waters’ film, it’s
one of the wildest, unrelenting opening scenes in celluloid history.
As Peggy falls apart, her maid, Grizelda (the fabulous 350-lb Jean Hill),
gets busted by Mr. Gravel for stealing liquor. The Rant continues. Peggy
and Grizelda join forces. Murder by crotch occurs. The women flee. Peggy
rants against nature (“Look at these disgusting trees stealing
MY OXYGEN!”). There’s a grotesque encounter with a panty-wearing
cop played by an individual named Turkey Joe. Things get really weird.
This one won’t have you packing up and moving to Maryland anytime
soon. -Zzilly Gutbuckets (aka Lizz Fisher) |
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