NOWHERE

Oh dear, oh dear. How DO you write a synopsis for a film like NOWHERE?

This 78-minute whirlwind is literally filled with short scenes, snappy editing and rapid-fire dialogue. There are an insane amount of characters and sets, often highly stylised ones, for what is essentially an indie picture. It never, ever pauses for breath. Its director once called it "90210 on acid" ... and, while underselling what viewers are to expect, that's also a near-perfect description of this fucked up DayGlo speedball's pitch.

It opens with central character Dark (James Duval), a supercilious teenager who wears his sexual ambiguity and drug-happy pastimes like badges of honour. We first meet him wanking in the shower to luminous dreams of trysts with both boys and girls...

Then we learn he's one of a group of slackers who would rather fuck, drink, smoke pot and discuss such disparate topics as pop culture and the end of the world, than attend school on this fateful day. There's his black girlfriend Mel (Rachel True) and her buddies; weirdo Shad (Ryan Phillippe) and his fashion-conscious nihilism; loner Egg (Sarah Lassez), who gets friendly with a cheesy television star (Jaason Simmons) who just happens to stop by her local diner on this particular morning.

Jana (Denise Richards) and her pal (Rose McGowen) are High School bitches. One guy is in a band whose singer keeps getting fucked on drugs; meanwhile Zoe (Mena Suvari) fills her day by flirting with a young black boy.

The plot, if that's what you can call it, bulldozes along at a lightning-quick pace, characters blurting out their dialogue speedily before we hurriedly cut to another scenario. The effect is a dizzying soap opera headiness which is completed by the production design's fantastically vivid colour patina. With a cast of attractive young hotties to front the arty sets and lots of middle-of-the-road indie songs on its soundtrack, NOWHERE is brighter and more nauseatingly gaudy than 90% of what you'd find on MTV.

Set across the course of a single, packed day, NOWHERE plays as a series of loose strands concerning vaguely related characters until eventually they're all brought together come late afternoon at a fateful house party. By that time, Dark's homework project of making a video about his best friend is no longer his main concern.

After all, he DOES witness an alien zapping three of his friends with a raygun, 22 minutes into the film! Yes, you read that correctly. But, in typical soap style, this incident is soon forgotten about as Dark piledrives into countless other scenarios of more pressing appeal to him: booze, sex, giggles...

31 minutes in, the slacker comedy vibe takes an unexpectedly dark turn as we witness a pretty savage rape.

The third film in what is now retrospectively looked upon as writer-director Greg Araki's "Teen Apocalypse" trilogy, NOWHERE was released theatrically in 1997 and came hot on the heels of THE DOOM GENERATION and TOTALLY FUCKED UP.

It's riddled with one-liners and crass expletives, the high-octane delivery coming across like a consistent kick to the nuts. The film is glamorous, but only superficially: these kids are just as aimless as those in the 90s films of Richard Linklater and Larry Clark. That Araki approaches his subjects with an offbeat humour and breakneck pace doesn't dilute the venom with which he satirises his generation: witness the cake devouring girls who then vomit up their food and inhale breath freshener immediately afterwards, should they get lucky later that day.

If the polysexual, multi-stranded and unflagging NOWHERE has a drawback it's that its point is a little too obvious. That is, up until the leftfield finale which is as daft and undermining as it is audacious. Quite unlike any other film, NOWHERE can also be annoying in its insistence on striving for a script filled with quotable lines and its unwavering pace, but it's striking enough to ensure you'll not soon forget it.

Second Sight release Greg Araki's offbeat comedy/sci-fi/drama onto region free DVD. As with the previous UK release from Pathe!, the film is presented uncut and in a 16x9 version of its original 1.85:1 aspect format.

However, Second Sight's release trumps the old DVD both in terms of presentation and extras. Only just, in the latter case.

The film itself looks grand here. There's still a raw, grainy look and feel to its aesthetics which may not be to everyone's taste - but the print is clean enough (minor damage here and there, but it passes as quickly as it appears) and very filmic in that its detail, colours and deep blacks are beautiful, never compromised by digital tomfoolery or over-cleansing. There is a natural lo-fi approach to compositions, lighting etc - so it would be naive to expect perfection. But what we get is, for the most part, amazing vibrant and detailed. Just look at the intricate features on close-ups of faces and skin: lovely. Some scenes do suffer in terms of over-exposure and there are the odd cigarette burn to suggest a secondary source of transfer, but by and large this is a nice proposition. It's a marked improvement over the Pathe! release, for certain.

English audio comes in its original 2.0 Dolby mix and is a strong, consistently clean and evenly balanced mix throughout.

The disc opens to an animated main menu page. A static scene-selection menu is split across 4 pages and allows access to the film via 16 chapters.

Yes, we do get bonus material. Well, a singular extra, actually. But that's one more supplement than the previous DVD offered, so fuck you Pathe!

Second Sight have pinned Araki down for the recording of a feature-length audio commentary track. For it, he's accompanied by co-stars Duval, True and Ladd. It's a decent, if rather raucous and not always relevant chat.

NOWHERE is a stylised, love-it-or-hate-it film from a highly original filmmaker. It boasts an extraordinary cast - which also includes the likes of Traci Lords, Beverly D'Angelo, Christina Applegate and Shannon Doherty - who all perform at fever pitch. It should be seen for that reason, and its "what the fuck" climax.

Review by Stuart Willis