No context, all feeling: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

A recent urge to only read reviews of new movies after I've seen them has been really paying off. I can still get the idea of whether a film is worth seeing from headlines, star ratings and general vibe, and I can leave the analysis for afterwards.

Sometimes I don't think I'm getting anything further out of it, and almost every piece of criticism about something is making the most basic of observations, the most inane of takes. And increasingly, I find a lot of modern film writing genuinely baffling, because they are immersed in a wider context that is so broad that I just can't get my head around it.

Teenage Sex and Death At Camp Miasma is clearly not for everybody, but I definitely got my kicks from it - I got the jokes about who produced The Burning, or the name of the old-school director. It's not the sort of film that I would recommend to everybody, because there is complexity in the way it tells its story, and I'm not entirely sure what is real and what isn't by the end of it, and I am 100 percent fine with that. 

I'm sure I am missing a whole bunch of subtext, just because I'm not a gender-fluid young person still figuring out their place in the world, but there are universal pleasures in a subversion of a slasher film, along with recognisable feelings of awkwardness and horniness that can resonate with anybody. If nothing else, we can all admit to having a giant crush on Gillian Anderson, no matter which way you roll.

And I have read some writing about the film since seeing it that has giving me wonderfully intellectual food for thought, and most of it has been generally positive about the film. But I've also stumbled across some fairly harsh criticism of the film, and it might be completely warranted, but I honestly have no idea. They are all about the film's place in a vaster and largely online culture that is completely alien to me. I just have no idea what they are talking about. (And I'm not going to link to the piece here, because that's not going to help.)

I have only tasted the tiniest portion of queer cinema, and love it as much as a painfully hetro dude can, because it gives me another point of view of the world, and that is always valuable. But I don't really engage in the wider culture around it because it's not my culture, and the last thing it needs is another buffoon like me trampling all over the fuckin' place.

But I do my best, and I don't sweat it when this film is slammed for improper representation, because they might have a point. I don't know.

I'm sure this kind of criticism is extremely useful for people who do understand what they want, but looking at a single work as just as a tiny piece of a wide context also feels like a faintly miserable way to engage with an artwork.

There is a blissful ignorance in not knowing exactly what is going on, and what it is trying to say, and I look forward to making some effort to getting my head around it. It's something new to learn about, it's that wider view of the world again, it's what it's all about.