Raw Nerves (1980)

A noir mostly set in a bathroom stall and stairwell. A private dick trapped in a tight spot. A narrator searching for a way out of the story. Toilet humor and pulp fiction captured in colors like you've never seen. (Steven Rodriguez) This film was an attempt to give cinematic expression to some of the ideas developed in Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus. In particular, it is the gangster version of the Oedipus complex, with a fim-noir Private I playing the role of the conscious subject. His introduction to the law of language does not occur in the cosy world of Daddy-Mommy-Me, but in a public bathroom where the signifier is defined as "the final scribble of a man who had taken his last shit in this world/" Formally 'Raw Nerves' makes heavy use of coloured lighting, projected light patterns and continuous use of optical effects, to create a new variation of the look of German Expressionist films. (Virtual Futures)