“Wake up Zombies!” Have queers become too complacent? Content with doom scrolling and just liking political content we agree with, without getting out of bed? Or even worse, surrendering to the enemy and voting for the likes of Trump, Reform, the AfD, and so on, somehow brainwashed that they care for homos? Greek director Fil Ieropoulos and writer Foivos Dousos think we need a wake-up call, and have served up psychedelic docu-essay Uchronia to get us to sit up and pay attention.

Inspired by Arthur Rimbaud’s visionary poem Une Saison En Enfer, in Uchronia we meet the ghost of Rimbaud who travels through history to encounter revolutionaries and queer freaks. They impart various gems of wisdom and history, either based on past knowledge or present-day life. The glorious group of visionaries includes Andy Warhol, Marsha P Johnson, Divine, Alan Turing, Leigh Bowery, David Wojnarowicz, Paul Verlaine and Emma Goldman. Other characters include the Millenium Bug, HIV Trauma, Feminist Theory Bombshell, AnOther and the Deleuzian Bodybuilder. But first, a quick recap on the genius of Rimbaud.

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) was a French poet known for transgressive and surreal themes. He heavily influenced modern literature and the arts, prefiguring surrealism. The restless soul and libertine was in a heady, violent relationship with fellow poet Paul Verlaine. He stopped writing aged 20, one of his last poems being 1873’s gin, absinthe and opium fuelled masterpiece Une Saison En Enfer (A Season In Hell), a nine-part prose poem which forms the structure of Uchronia.

Uchronia begins as the ghost of Rimbaud rises from his grave. Together with his sidekick, the ghost of Emma Goldman, he revisits various key players from our past to try to understand why modern-day queers and others are so accepting of such a messy current status quo in life. Ieropolus combines archival footage and photographs with re-enactments and reinventions featuring the aforementioned characters to make his point.

And his point is very valid. Why are we so placid in the face of such oppression? He explores revolutionaries such as Lenin and Trotsky, analyses fascism per Susan Sontag’s thinking and considers how modern-day ‘fascists’ such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Georgia Meloni have been given the space to grow. How have they managed to influence so many queer people, too? Why do some German queers vote for the AfD fascists? Why are we content with so much basic queer storytelling in filmmaking? Why do we increasingly accept AI slop? Is AI slop the new Pop Art? Radical outsiders shaped the freedoms of our democracy. Where are they now? These, and many more questions, will wake you up.

Uchronia is not easy viewing. There is so much going on, the highly visual psychedelic avant-garde experience jumps from theme to theme and character to character very quickly – in the same restless manner as Rimbaud’s poem. It’s a hard-hitting, jarring study of the state of the queer nation, power and identity. You should, however, watch and pay attention, and you’ll be glad you did. It’s a thought-provoking vigil on humanity. 8/10