Poison (1991)

Difficult to understand why this film has been accorded such praise, except perhaps due to its being an early film explicitly addressing gay issues. 26 years later, it seems crudely made and quite tedious, with much of it impressing this viewer as a very poor attempt at recreating the atmosphere of old Hollywood Film Noir or a 50s TV melodrama. Each of the three stories seemed like caricatures with little of any compelling interest.

This film is probably best viewed as part of a film class (and not necessarily one on Queer Cinema although Todd Haynes prefers gentlemen).I prefer "Safe" and also "Far From Heaven" from this clearly talented director. His suave incorporation of 50's style sci-fi and 80's TV docudrama and a stagey prison play is more engaging here than the three intercut stories themselves.The film starts with an actor going out a window, and ends with a similar scene. There is a moment in the sci-fi "Horror" substory where the lead mutters "And so it begins..." Temporally what would have followed is the scene that actually does start the film.Despite a low budget, Haynes does employ a lot of clever camera tricks and cinematic tacks. He squeezes out some efficient acting from his mostly unknown cast. (Okay, that was John Leguizamo in for two scenes...) If anything, I feel Haynes could have spent more money on lighting. The B&W sci-fi shots were often heavy on the B, and much of the prison footage was a darker shade of murky, at least on DVD at home. But then one of the displayed Jean Genet quotes speaks of the necessary darkness for the seed of dream. The stories here may be genetically Genet, I am more familiar with who he was in person than in print. Again for a student of Genet, I think this would be a more satisfying expenditure of time, thought and money than it was for myself.There's also a socio-political bent to the release and funding of this film. Rev. Donald Wildmon provided protest and thus inadvertent P.R. for "Poison." Meanwhile others cite an AIDS angle to the movie.For me, I walked a way with a sense of sex linked with shame. A child catches his mother in infidelity, prison passion is stolen in the shadows, lasciviousness makes lepers of a community. Also while not the focus, each episode had some sex entwined with violence. Sex was portrayed as anything but erotic throughout. Ultimately I could not make out whether Haynes was trying to decry society's reaction to sexual "deviancy" as more dangerous than said deviancy; or if he was just trying to revel in sordid shock? I doubt the latter, probably he wanted to take the challenge of presenting Genet to audiences today. Better than another modern take on Shakespeare surely.But while Genet's writings were surely scandalous in his day, what about Haynes' audience now? I realize that there are still throngs of folks who fear thongs...much less anything as pointed as a penis. Yes those folks are out there, I just don't know any of them...and I doubt I'll be wresting a copy of "Poison" from their hands at the local videodrome any time soon. We keep our distance, I recommend you keep your distance from this disk as well. I do think such distance and decorum can exist....along with same sex marriage.So unless you are assigned to watch it, to study it... choose another "Poison."5/10

After reading a bit about Todd Haynes' "Poison" and the homosexual comparisons that people seem to only be drawing from it, I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't deserve to just be tagged as a seminal film of the "new queer cinema". It's so much more than that.First of all, I found "Homo" to be the least intriguing of the 3 stories. "Hero" is actually more disturbing, showing the sudden disappearance of a mentally-inflicted, patricidal child who, according to his mother, was sent from the angels. I was particularly impressed by Haynes' creative use of layering in the adultery and spanking scenes.But, in blending three prominent aspects (color, black and white, documentary) of the film medium into his film, the beautiful b&w "Horror" is the most notable, showing the sudden downfall of a scientist's prosperity. Haynes conveys the scientist's hysteria to his audience by using slanted, extreme close-up camera techniques and spastic editing, not to mention a haunting soundtrack.The film is a bizarre one, indeed... but undeniably artful, and it certainly doesn't deserve to simply be pigeonholed into nothing more than a cornerstone for homosexual cinema.

I was excited about seeing this because I loved Safe and Velvet Goldmine, but this was just a bizarre bizarre piece of filmmaking. There are I suppose points to be made about the unreasonable fear of the AIDS virus which emerge in the story about the man who drinks the sex drive and becomes a leper, but they weren't so amazingly poignant. Haynes denies that this sequence connects with AIDS of course, so who knows. The story that was the most interesting was the mockumentary about the boy who kills his father, but the structure of the film as three stories proceeding in succession prevents you from really getting interested or emotionally involved in the movie. I didn't know what was so offensive about the prison scene, I just found it boring, as well as the rest of the film.