Tromeo and Juliet 4K 1996

Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, sexual perversions, punks, hippies, hipsters, good old-fashioned rape, democracy, Twilight, pornography, snuff, McDonald's, instant coffee, nuclear weapons, pedophilia, radiation, terrorism, blonde women driving (sorry), and genocide—our world has been sliding into hell for so long that it feels like we've been there for ages. And in the end, who can guarantee that we are not all sinful souls serving our punishment, and that real life has already been lived, with no memory of it remaining. This crazy, cruel, bloody, perverted world. If a story like the one Shakespeare wrote about four hundred years ago could arise in it, then the version presented in Troméo et Juliette seems quite plausible. The TROMA studio, widely known in narrow circles, has once again desecrated a sacred text, presenting a story, sadder than any other in the world, as an ultra-low-budget ($350,000) dark, absurd, bloody, toilet comedy with freakish characters, monster penises, and streams of sex and violence.
And it's even more amusing that the Shakespearean plot is preserved here more than one might expect from such a crazy parody. Most of the key events are in place, only the interpretation differs, and there is a Troum-esque twisted happy ending, spectacular and even touching in its own way. Screenwriter James Gunn, who interpreted the famous tragedy for the notorious studio, is quite an interesting guy. It is no coincidence that he, with his dirty sense of humor, became one of the co-authors of Movie 43, and his unique talent as a screenwriter is evident in Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead and the memorable horror film Slime. But it all started with Troma and Troméo, and honestly, that's not the worst line on his resume, even if the audience of film connoisseurs is so insignificant.

So, Juliet is a lovely and pleasant lesbian who has terrible surrealistic dreams about carnal love with men, which cause her to wake up screaming and sink even deeper into the delights of pink love. Tromeo is an older nerd who falls in love with prostitutes and actively uses his extensive video collection of porn versions of Shakespeare's plays. They saw each other and fell in love, and then the text continues with all the accompanying deaths, their first night together, and a bottle of some kind of elixir that is supposed to help Juliet avoid marriage to an unloved rich man. And then the Shakespeare book closes, and the screenwriters' imagination takes over, because they were not filming a tragedy, but a comedy, and, accordingly, there are no crypts and deaths of young lovers.
And the answer to any puzzled looks will be the phrase: this is not Venice, this is Tromaville, the twentieth century. Nothing can be too crazy for this time and place.

It is interesting to note that in the same year as ‘Tromeo’, another modernized version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was released - Baz Luhrmann's glossy work starring DiCaprio. Shakespeare's verse against the backdrop of a modern city was apparently meant to show that Shakespeare's play is timeless and his words are immortal. And here's what's strange: Lloyd Kaufman's absurd parody interpretation seems more harmonious in our reality. Even despite the obvious artifice and grandiose figures that are not in the pocket but in plain sight, which are literally shoved in the viewer's face. Do you like it? No? Not surprising. Only nihilism, only nonconformity. Atomic Juliet, the punk and anarchist version. And Shakespeare, laughing heartily a second before the final credits, as if to say: we don't care about your righteous indignation, we laugh at you through the mouth of the great playwright. It's his story, and we just messed around a little. Who knows, maybe he would have liked it too.