Director: James Bidgood
Year Released: 1971
Rating: 2.5
Dream-like, trippy film by "Anonymous" (actually James Bidgood, who removed his name from the credits because he was displeased with the way the film was edited) about muse Bobby Kendall's erotic adventures where he envisions himself in a variety of roles (which include matador, biker and Roman slave). Despite Bidgood's reservations about the finished product, this is shockingly resourceful filmmaking, shot with a minimum of locations and materials but with astounding visuals - it brings to mind several other famous underground works of the era, specifically Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures, Kenneth Anger's Kustom Kar Kommandos and the ultra low-budget films of the Kuchar Brothers (all of which, in turn, had an influence on John Waters and Derek Jarman). Since it's plotless it is a little meandering, and like the Warhol-Morrissey-Dallesandro pictures relies a lot the viewer's 'ogling threshold' - for heterosexual viewers, a certain open-mindedness is required - but on a purely imaginative level, I only wished young, modern filmmakers were this passionate about their material and dedicated to their pictures.
