Luke is a mischievous and reckless drifter who has HIV. Jon is a somewhat uptight film critic who has just discovered that he’s HIV-positive. They meet rather unconventionally after Luke has a run-in with a trio of gay-bashers. Trouble ensues and problems escalate off the rails, thanks largely to the gun Luke is toting around. They go on a nihilistic and hedonistic road trip; fueled by bottles of whiskey and Luke’s motto: “Fuck the world”. The soundtrack is a stellar collection of ’80s/early ’90s industrial and post-punk gems, which sonically reinforce the manifesto.

Andy Warhol, John Waters, and Derek Jarman images and references show up early in the adventure. But nods to Jean-Luc Godard run rampant throughout. In many ways, the film is a love letter to the work of Godard and of the French New Wave Cinema of the late ‘60s — which sprang from the context of the anti-war and student movements. With The Living End, Araki establishes himself as a vanguard in what would soon be called “New Queer Cinema” which springs out of the struggle for queer rights and HIV/AIDS activism, wrapped in the fear of potential assimilation, or rather the “Death of Cinema”.