Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surreal Realism, 11 April 2007
Gummo can't really be described.
The simple thing to claim would be that it is the rural version of Kids, which Korine wrote, and many of that film's preoccupations are here: bored, bleak youth, an ear for dialogue, shock... but it is so much more than that.
The plot stated above doesn't have much impact on the actual film and what happens is more about the aimless, bleak lives of Xenia's inhabitants- the very poorest and most ignored of white trash. The two boys who kill cats to sniff glue are not a central focus, the story comes from all angles and from all positions and there isn't really a protagonist or a narrator, rather a series of short scenes and vingettes that mean little on their own but go together to create a clear depiction of how these people live.
If nothing else Gummo is a set of really beautiful and striking images. A bleached, albino Chloe Sevigny licking her lips seductively and sweeping her hair back in slow motion over Everyday by Buddy Holly; a boy eating spagetti and chocolate in the bath whilst his mother washes his hair with filthy water, or Harmony Korine, the director, as a drunken kid pleading and flirting with a black dwarf.
Along with this are images of complete decay, nihilism and violence that combine to form something unsettling and disturbing. This is because of Korine's use of contrasting elements to create what he calls 'surreal realism' where the natural and odd mix together. As a result we see kids smoking pantella cigars and viciously flogging a dead cat over industrial, retching black metal or discussing Marlene Dietrich as Like A Prayer by Madonna fills the room.
Korine's refusal to fulfil expectations and make something with definite narrative or plot allows things to evolve with fluidity. Furthermore, the characters are all well-developed and Korine completely refuses to condone or condemn them, so we watch without prejudice. And despite their poor surroundings many of the characters, such as Sevigny's character Dot, are shown to be charming and witty.
In an interview Korine claimed he wanted to make a film out of everything he loved, one of both the ghetto and the cultured, whether that was Linda Manz or Burzum and other black metal bands or British TV director Alan Clarke- whose style of long, flowing Steadicam shots he borrows liberally from- he didn't care. He managed to create something of beauty- respect must also be paid to Jean Yves Escoffier whose cinematography is incredible here- where the mood is far more important and valuable than meaning.
When the film was released in 1997 it was met with a mixture of derision and high acclaim, the latter usually from other auteurs like Herzog and Godard.
Janet Maslin's famous 'The Worst Film Of the Year' review destroyed its chances in America whilst it thrived at festivals and in Europe. The majority of this cruel opinion comes from Korine's use of people who actually have Down's Syndrome or are retarded or dwarves, or whatever. Critics reasoned that this was exploitation and another part of Korine's attack on morals and purile desire to shock. He countered that to genuinely have someone in a film with an affliction was much less offensive than hiring an actor like Dustin Hoffman or Tom Hanks to sentimentally portray it. The scenes with the retarded girl talking or featuring Bryant the dwarf are touching and aren't cruel or vicious and do not single them out: after all this is a film whose entire cast is composed of outsiders, another two do not make a difference. Ultimately, the people in Gummo really don't care about political correctness; it doesn't matter to them.
The critics' reaction was one of knee-jerk decency where they felt to condemn the film because it showed something they were not used to or something that claimed was unnatural or uneccesary. This is nonsense as he is simply showing real life and people like the cast of Gummo- almost all unproffesional- exist and they can't be denied. Because of its clarity and its unrelenting strangness, all shown in a foreign vernacular, Gummo had to be derided as the work of a talentless enfant terrible- the most misapplied of media terms, they called Tarantino one after the dreadful Pulp Fiction and he was thirty.
What Korine creates is something completely different in the language of cinema, although not without precedent if we consider the Marx Brothers, Terrence Malick, Fassbinder, Alan Clarke and most importantly, Herzog, another great cinematic outsider. Gummo is utterly different and is not afraid to do things that might alienate the viewer, freely mixing grainy 8mm with glossy 35, quality sound with sound that crackles and distorts.
In reality it is the safer alternative to a very sanitised film industry where the independent films of Warhol or Cassavetes have been replaced with dull, noxious industry-produced marketing versions like Donnie Darko or those Wes Anderson films.
Gummo is a film very personal to Korine where he records his own life in Tennessee- the setting for Xenia- that manages to really alter the viewer's attitudes or show them what true filmaking is. He created a punk cinema: nihilistic, valueless and uncompromising. But the reaction to the film is not unsurprising, after all, no one liked Cassavetes until about ten years after he died, and nobody likes Alan Clarke now.
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21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Highlight of 1990's US Cinema., 6 Oct 2002
This is one of the major films of the 1990's, as suggested by its presence in a recent poll in Sight & Sound; some of it is very hard to watch- recalling films like Eloge de l'Amour, Festen and Happy Together. There is also a link to the imagery of Larry Clark (Teenage Lust), which is expected since Korine wrote Kids- their collaboration, this and Bully feature young topless males frequently. Korine's debut from 1997 is as beguiling as 2000's Julien Donkey Boy- there is little like this in contemporary cinema. The story?- a tornado has occurred and left few adults- thus children run free like wild dogs in a midwestern town. It feels like a fragmented portrait, recalling Godard's Masculin-Feminin. The film generally centres of two young males (Reynolds & Sutton) who travel on BMX's through the smalltown despatching cats with guns. Sometimes the characters come together, more frequently not. There are many iconic shots here- the opening sequence of Bunny Boy on the bridge, though he is best towards the end where, one shoe on, he pulls a Christ pose on a skateboard on stunning video. Or the wonderful scene where he is with two girls in the swimming pool as it rains and Roy Orbison's Crying plays (as good as the scene's in Lynch's Blue Velvet & Mulholland Drive that use the music of the big O). There are some quite odd homoerotic scenes- the best being the skinhead Jehovah's witness brothers fighting in a kitchen or Korine's performance as a ****ed up type with a black midget on a settee (between the world of Freaks & the failure that was Storytelling). Great to see the use of Slayer- giving it the feel of 80's classic River's Edge (can someone reissue that , please?). The Like a Prayer sequence is great also...The highlight for me is the wonderful Chloe Sevigny, one of the greatest actresses around- and the costumes she designs are brilliant also. Gummo is an acquired taste, but persist and you will realise it is a great work of art and a highlight of 1990's US cinema.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
unique, 2 Mar 2004
this is a superb film. the sort to watch again straight away after finishing. it's constantly fascinating- new emotions will wash over your body ever minute, and there is a whole gammit of emotions covered here (not all positive by a long shot). some will hate this- no traditional story, it is very experimental/unconventional. but it is very entertaining not some boring up its own behind arty film. essential!
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