From Marina Ashioti’s article for Little White Lies:
Beneath the dazzling surface of double exposures and clever cinematography tricks using lenses and angles to create the illusion of depth, Pink Narcissus shows an incredibly intimate understanding of the world of fantasy. Familiar imagery is reconfigured and filtered through a newly queer, free-form gaze that revels in its own vibrancy, gazing, intoxicated, over its protagonist’s muscular body in fawning detail. Whereas the original Narcissus myth serves as an ancient cautionary tale about the perils of solipsism and self-obsession, it’s not uncommon to read Narcissus’ desire for his own reflection as homoerotic and assume that a fixation with his own reflection is a manifestation of same-sex desire. Reaching through one’s reflection in order to indulge in the self is an act that depends on the private realm of the imagination: it is in the unfettered sanctuary of the mind and its capacity to dream, that the act of escape is turned inward and becomes entirely one’s own, creating a private fortress strong enough to contain fantasies that can only be explored in solitude.