[7.2]

Directed by Harmony Korine

First Line Features

Rated R, 89 mins.

Damn. Just … DAMN.

After showboating my affections for Spring Breakers over almost an entire year, it would only make sense that I would finally turn to the rest of Harmony Korine’s work, right? And after viewing Gummo, the first auteurist effort from the new man “on the list with Godard, Cassavetes, Herzog, Warhol, Tarkovsky, Brakhage and others who smash conventional movies and reassemble the pieces,” (as quoted from Roger Ebert’s favorable review of Julien Donkey-Boy), I will continue to roll down the list of everything the hard-core indie rebel has to offer. It takes a certain kind of self-assurance to make art films like this and promote them with a straight face, especially pieces that rely so much on shock value. But Korine does it with beautiful, darkly comic, and ever-intelligent confidence, as if he needed to prove he was the real deal.

After a rapture-esque tornado nearly wipes out the poor Midwestern town of Xenia, Ohio, the community never recovers. What Korine drops in front of us is a collage of vignettes, alongside still photographs and replications of home footage, that display the most grotesque attributes of small-town America (shot in Nashville) and misguided pop culture, which are then tossed into a blender and vomited right back out again. Shot on a variety of video mediums, some handed out to random participants who Korine would pull off the streets (many of whom are in the film, as well), Gummo is the “hang out” genre gone to hell. A lot of it is simply terrifying – just imagine hanging out with a town full of Sid’s from Toy Story. And yes, that even applies to the grown-ups.

These are characters who saw everything in front of them wiped out by nature, quickly having the idea of meaningful existence thrust from their psyches. Therefore, keeping in mind that nothing matters, even the most mundane or vile actions take on a muted beauty. These folks don’t live, they pass time. And that time is filled with ugliness, because given a life and civilization that could disappear within an instant, even torturing cats or sniffing glue is fine.

Just … fine.