Pink Flamingos (Dir John Waters, 1h 32m, 1972)

Taste is subjective. Bad taste is universal. No film maker has enscapsulated this better, over his fifty plus year career than John Waters, whose career has gone from trailer park aesthetic-inflected films that almost deliberately go out of their way to shock, disgust and amuse their audiences, to Water's current status as a counter-culture and LGBT icon, responsible for Broadway smash, Hairspray and regularly making cameo appearances in cultural stalwarts like The Simpsons and Mickey Mouse.

Unquestionably, for all his now-iconic status, Waters' notoriety and iconic status as a film maker stems from his "Trash Trilogy", a trio of films made between 1972 and 1977, films as campy as they are outrageous, largely shot in his native Baltimore, starring his regular troupe of actors (the Dreamlanders), with the first two starring the iconic , unapologetic, and wonderfully crass drag queen Divine. None of these films are more iconic, more infamous, more important to not only experimental cinema, not only LGBT cinema but cinema as a medium as Pink Flamingos

Depicting Divine, in hiding as Babs, as the filthiest person alive, an on-the-run violent criminal who hides out in a Baltimore trailer park, together with her companion Cotton, her son Crackers, and her mentally ill mother, and their feud with the equally crass Connie and Raymond Marble, who are after Divine's crown of the "Filthiest People Alive. This bizarre competition escalates throughout the film, and brutally, crassly funny setpieces that push the boundaries of the already transgressive midnight movie to breaking point, to the violent revenge-execution of Connie and Raymond and one of the single most infamous ending shots in cinema, in which the transgressive fiction collides with the shockingly real.

What Pink Flamingos is, unquestionably, for all its shock value, for all its deliberate attempts to disorientate and disgust its audience, funny. Gutbustingly, brilliantly, bitingly funny, from Waters' sly narration (as Mr J) that sets the scene for the rest of his film, to its profanity-strewn dialogue that becomes positively baroque as tensions rise, to its characters, ranging from Divine, equal parts drag queen and spectacularly dangerous wanted woman, wielding weapons, and casually murdering as she marches through this film, to her son, the violent and yet devoted Crackers, to her mother, whose obsession with eggs eventually culminates with her being married to the Eggman who delivers them, to the Marbles, whose obsession with taking Divine's crown drives them ever on into more outlandish actions.

Unquestionably, some of the at points incredibly darkly comic humour comes from its transgressiveness and its shamelessness at being so-there are too many moments to list where the film merrily hops the barrier of good taste, gives a cheery wave, and ploughs off into unashamed filth, from chicken murder during sex to furniture licking and fellatio, to not one but two turds, to general bad taste, including murder, Nazi paraphernalia, and all manner of trailer-trash aesthetic kitsch, including the titular flamingos.

Two scenes above all depict this in all its unrepentant majesty; the first, Divine's birthday party, revels in how transgressive it can be, not only to shock its audience but also the spying Marbles, culminating with police officers called to the disturbance being hacked up and eaten, whilst the second, in which the Marbles finally meet their comeuppance, is practically a manifesto, not only on Divine the character's world view but on trash cinema as a whole.

Moreover, it is a paean to the independent film in general, made with local actors for under $10,000 and with a soundtrack strung together from B-sides and forgotten rock records-for all its profanity, its violence, its banning in several countries, it was a run-away commercial success, netting over $7 million over its run, and continuing to run in its rightful place as a masterpiece of midnight movie. As a piece of avant-garde cinema, it's somewhat fitting that this film succeeds Jodorowsky's El Topo (see last week's review of The Holy Mountain), at the Elgin, and was dubbed, even at the time, an American answer to Un Chien Andalou.

There is, for all the base earthiness of this film, a surreal unreality to it, a film that at once revels in its subversion of and yet pays homage to the Golden Age of Technicolour; its characters are outlandish, existing in a world out of reality in which murder and revolting acts are social capital, not reviled, where the media covers blatant murder and filth with relish, and the tabloids clamour for more. And atop it all, the film's depiction of sex, of queer lifestyles, of lives on the edge of normality, of thieves and criminals and outcasts, are sympathetic-amid the filth, they are proud, outspoken and unapologetic.

And it is this unapologeticness, this utter unashamed approach, despite the crassness, the exploitation film, this bizarre violent erotic profane film, that permeates it, that makes it a cult film, not only in the LGBT circles that first championed it, but in cinema-goers as a whole. And even though it shocks, even though it revels in its trashiness, Pink Flamingos is an indelible, beautiful, strange icon of cult cinema.

Rating: Highly Recommended