The Cinematheque

“A must-watch for any Araki fan … [A] rough draft of the same scenes and motifs later exalted in vibrant colours throughout the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy … A remarkable starting point.”

Shelby Shaw, Screen Slate

A transmission from the ​“totally hostile and irrational universe” of Los Angeles and its yuppie-infested art scene, Gregg Araki’s rarely screened no-budget debut (and its highly quotable dialogue) is an emotionally transparent work of inspired self-definition. Alicia and Craig are a couple; David is Alicia’s best friend. Though Araki looks up to Godard (cited here and later in Totally Fucked Up), the film is closer to Eustache in its patient, carefully modulated mix of intimacy and resentment. Each of these twentysomething artists knows they need ​“something monumental to happen,” but that would require belief in something larger than themselves. So they meet around midnight to talk about their loneliness and desires. This Bolex-shot film reveals that Araki’s strengths don’t derive just from shoegaze soundtracks, pop-art lighting, and confident editing, but in the untroubled way he treats the transformation of seemingly fixed character types and plots. It screens from a new 2K scan.

“Three Bewildered People was very much a diary of how I was feeling at the time, of being in my twenties and so existentially depressed. But, the flip side was that I was so young and so innocent. I had the whole world ahead of me.”

Gregg Araki