Naked Lunch

David Cronenberg’s NAKED LUNCH has received a beautiful 4K restoration which opens Berlin Classics 2023 as a world premiere..

Welcome to Interzone as Cronenberg blends the life of the Beat Generation’s godfather, William S. Burroughs with the junk-fuelled hallucinations of the author’s most famous work.

Peter Weller plays William Lee, a writer and exterminator addicted to his own bug powder. After accidentally killing his wife Joan (Judy Davis), Lee escapes to Interzone at the suggestion of his typewriter (a giant talking roach) and the Mugwump (a hideous humanoid creature) — who are both counter-agents to the conspiracy of Interzone, Inc. Lee tumbles into this conspiracy, marred by the nefarious Dr Benway (Roy Scheider), fugue states, love interests, black centipedes, sexual typewriters, and a whole kaleidoscope of hallucinations that will infect your subconscious if you let them.

Produced in 1991 by Jeremy Thomas at Recorded Picture Company, NAKED LUNCH was restored by Turbine in Germany, in partnership with Arrow Films and with thanks to Studio Canal Germany. The original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 4K resolution, and more than 165,000 individual frames were cleaned and restored by hand. The film will be shown in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The restoration process was supervised by DP Peter Suschitzky and approved by David Cronenberg.

Canada, UK, Japan | English | 1991 | 115 mins | HD