|
|
 Don't let Kids (or Lennie Maltin) sway you away from watching/buying Gummo. If you like Godard, Herzog, or any arty/foreign filmmaker that operates pretty unconventionally, this flick will blow your Southern socks off. Harmony really serves up a Southern-fried treat replete with cats, little pink bunnies, and a grandmother on a life support system. Bizarre and beautiful.
Then there is the boy with the bunny ears, a black dwarf, a boy who looks like a troll and about 14 million stray cats. I mean there are parts of the movie where I found myself laughing at loud because it was so silly. And when this movie was over I felt like a bus had ran over me and then backed up just to run me down again. I haven't seen "Kids" yet, but if it is anything like this, I think I will pass. It is sort of strange, because I was told that I was going to like "Gummo". But hey if you have an odd sense of humor and want to lose about 90 minutes that you will never get back, go for it.
My father is from rural Ohio, not so far from Xenia, and I believe that there are many people living like the characters from Gummo in the rural midwest and other semi-isolated areas across our great nation. But not all of them live that way, mind you, though they may share similar accents and even similar degrees of squalor. Not all poor whites living in squalor also kill cats, bathe in black water or visit such meager houses of mentally handicapped ill repute. The director (Harmony Korine) chose to focus on the disturbing, gothic and picturesque elements of that slice of the U.S., with great success. The film is unnerving, particularly if you like cats, and more so if you are aware that while not necessarily an accurate, representative depiction of poor whites (or black jewish gay midgets, for that matter) and rednecks, neither is the movie a complete descent into its creators' most filthy fantasies. Frankly, what most irritates me about some of the reviews that follow is that many use their space as a forum to rant about how "utterly terrifying" and disturbing redneck culture is, and to rail against the conservatives who would "undoubtedly" scoff at this film. Politically I am on the conservative side myself, and I don't imagine that Al Gore numbers Gummo among the videos in his happy and profanity-free collection. Please, don't confuse our taste in films with our political leanings; you will inevitably flounder, sooner or later. What I meant to say before waxing self-righteous is this: Gummo awakens some sense of the humanity of those who many of us are wont to call rednecks and white trash, without falsely glorifying those individuals in the slightest (on the contrary, I'm afraid). Sure, the burly fellow who loses the arm-wrestle and conquers the chair seems a bit unpleasant, but I would be pleased to know most of the other denizens of Gummo-land (come on now, it's not really Xenia, and YES THEY ARE ACTING: don't you know any better? did you believe in the Blair Witch, too?). Especially that lovely creature in the bunny ears. He was "wholly euphoric", I might even say. In summary (have I violated the word-limit yet?): rent this, it's not a waste of time; it's colorful, coherent and very enjoyable despite the oft-cited lack of plot. And if you liked it, there's a TRUE documentary -- I think it's called Vernon, Florida? Vernon Some-state, anyhow -- that's in the same vein. Check it out.
|
This movie is really weak, I am not sure what the point of it is. I have watched it two times through and it is sad that I am admitting that. The movie has no beginning and no end, only a middle. I also think that half of the acting isn't acting at all, but real people. The characters are totally droll, however I think that was the point. But since these characters are so out there why should a viewer care. It plays more like a HBO America Undercover special, that doesn't make sense. 
As you'll see if you read a couple of the following reviews, this film is of that class that inspires pithy reviewers to use language like "utterly astounding", "stupefyingly beautiful", "truly visionary" and so forth. You'll find few adjectives without a corresponding adverb. So I'll try to avoid that: I thought Gummo was interesting and well-done, but not ecstatic, blissful, mind-numbing, or any of that. I guess I liked it well enough to read some 50 or 60 of the reviews, which is saying something; in fact I liked it well enough to join the fracas and review it myself (first time ever, although I am a junkie for other people's reviews).
