REVIEW: Pink Narcissus (1971)

Hello cinema lovers. Director James Bidgood's Pink Narcissus is the kind of movie that refuses to be categorised. You may have never heard of it before, for good reason; it's an odd, obscure, but compelling piece of queer cinema. James Bidgood's 68-minute homoerotic fantasy jerk off, shot painstakingly inside his own New York apartment between 1963 and 1970. It's received a 4K restoration on Blu-ray courtesy of BFI, inviting a new generation to sit with one of the strangest yet alluring works in the queer cinematic canon. Take a walk on the wild side.

The film stars Bobby Kendall as an unnamed male hustler, who is beautiful and totally self-absorbed, as the movie's title suggests. He drifts between erotic fantasy sequences while alone in his sickly pink-lit apartment. He pictures himself as a matador, his bull a leather-jacketed motorcyclist. He imagines himself a Roman slave offered to an emperor. He presides over an Arabian harem. He fumbles around in a public toilet, pushing down an eager recipient to give him head. There is no dialogue here, no real narrative; the viewer is left to ponder what this film is all about.

What the film does provide is the most vibrant of colours. Various close-ups of surfaces, skin, chiffon and golden objects. The camera lustily leers over Kendall's muscular body in a series of extended sequences showcasing the bloom of youth. Kendell shows that impressive body off with great pride, his perfect ass front and centre wherever possible. At times it feels like a precursor to the french porn movies of Jean Daniel Cadinot.

Director Bidgood was primarily a photographer but also a drag queen, costume designer, and physique photographer. He constructed elaborate fantasy worlds inside a single cramped apartment. What he achieved here with minimal resources is ambitious. It doesn't always come together, but as later micro budget gems like Tangerine and The Watermelon Woman would show, extreme constraint in service of extreme subjectivity can give dividends.

This particular restoration is important because of what happened to the original. Bidgood lost the final cut. He refused credit. In 1971, the film went out under "Anonymous" as producer, writer and director, and for years the question of who actually made it circulated as rumour. Only in later years did the director take credit for his work. Bidgood lived to 88, sadly dying of COVID in 2022, and Pink Narcissus remained his only completed feature. This release serves as a tribute to a talented director who should have had a bigger career.

This is a film all about gay desire. The project began before the Stonewall riots and the release came afterwards; it shows pre-liberation gay life in New York and the emergence of something more open and joyful. Kendall's hustler is confined, almost locked away; his fantasies seem to come from a place of boredom. Street signs in one sequence read "chicken," "going out of business," "get 'em while you're hot". a cynical commentary on the economy of youth and beauty and the dread of ageing that some gay men carry to this very day.

This film drew directly on some of the more homoerotic works available in the 1960s; Barbarella (1968) strongly comes to mind, as does Midnight Cowboy (1969). Its influence, in turn, is felt with Fassbinder's Querelle (1982), which definitely owes a debt to Bidgood, as does William Friedkin's Cruising (1980). Pink Narcissus is not easy viewing. It is repetitive and dreamlike and sometimes a little dull. It's 68 minutes that feel longer than it should; the lack of dialogue hurts the final product. However, as a document of queer desire and the need to create an interior universe when the outside world hates you in the pre-Stonewall world its well worth checking out. Just don't expect too much.

The BFI Blu-ray release for Pink Narcissus (1971) will be 15 June 2026 in the UK.