Trash Humpers

Harmony Korine returns to his classically-rough style of film making, in this peculiar film centered around four elderly people who roam the streets. Their acts consist of vandalism, destruction of objects, and, well, quite literally humping trash - or trees, for that matter.

Trash Humpers has no real plot to it. We simply watch these people do the most obscure things, in a mock-doc found footage kinda style. I'm not going to delve into any of the 'story' details because there is really nothing to say. It's just as I described above, really - extremely odd.

In terms of style, Korine has gone back to his roots of Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy, by using very low quality cameras, grainy visuals, some out of focus moments, and freehand camera movements. Things just happen, and the camera just looks on. What is interesting in this film is that Korine decides to go all out with the hand-held VHS camera work, and almost makes it a character in itself. We are aware that one of the characters is in control of the camera, which is why I would refer to it as 'found footage'. What we gain from this is a knowledge that the characters are in control, and thus, they are the ones that determine what we see, and what we do not see. It not only gives us more of an insight into their characters, but it promotes a very natural and realistic feeling in the film. It also gives the audience a feeling of being right there with the characters. We are, for lack of s better word, trapped with these characters for the entire 74 minute run-time. We see what they see, or watch they want us to see. We are basically forced to watch what they do, how they do it, but we are left to figure out 'why?'

Which leads into my next point, or question. Why? Why are these characters doing this? I'd like to think I have some sort of idea of what the film is trying to do. However, it is the age old question of 'how far does the film need to go in order to make its point?' Does this film really need to show us the amount of weird acts it does, just to clarify it's ideas? You can ask this for many films: did A Serbian Film really need to show 'newborn porn' in order to get the point across? Did Salo really need to show people eating poop to get its point across? I guess that's left for us to decide, but for me, I can only get so much out of watching people do random weird acts before wondering where we are actually going with it.

To me, this film is a look at forgotten people. The ignored underbelly of America, which Korine loves studying. What I took from this film was a sense of freedom. People letting go. Returning to their childlike ways, with a lot more debaucheries, of course. A group of old people with pretty much nothing to live for, they could be sad and depressed. However, they choose not to do so. They choose to be happy, to be free, to let go. Rather that whither away, they get up and out into the world. They simply enjoy themselves. I'm not one to judge, so if enjoyment to them is humping a plastic bin, then so be it. The point is that they are enjoying what they have, and living freely, without a care in the world. Albeit slightly demented. The humping of the trash could quite literally show their love and affection for what they have, and where they live. They are bottom of the pile. The opposite of the American dream, but they choose to accept it and embrace it. I feel like this is amplified by Korine's characters speech towards the end. Maybe I'm just babbling, maybe the emperor has no clothes, but I guess Korine has left that for us to decide.

Despite looking into this film, and picking out some meaning here and there, I definitely think this is Korine's weakest work. For me, despite being technically intriguing, and having interesting characters, the film still lacks that total conviction for me. I feel like if you want a meaning, you really have to explore it and go digging. I don't mind that, but my point is that this film doesn't initially have a massive amount to it. For some there will be meaning to pick out, and aspects to respect, but at the end of the day this film is just old people humping trash and carrying out debaucheries. There doesn't appear to be anything obvious to it, and do they really need to show us acts THIS obscure. Does the film really need to be this strange, random and vulgar just to get its point across? And how far can we decipher this film before there is nothing left to look into, yet we are still watching the same acts. We can only get so much from seeing the same acts over and over. Still, I'd like to think I got something. And artistically, this film is vastly unique and different to anything you'll ever see. Love it or hate it, I can confirm that these characters and their acts will linger in your mind.

Three vagrants in Halloween masks spend their nights humping rubbish bins and their days befriending likeminded individuals in this quizzical comedy from Harmony Korine. Whereas Korine's latter 'Spring Breakers' is a remarkable film that gradually reveals itself to be anything but what one would expect from its title, promotional posters and opening shots of bikini-clad beachgoers, 'Trash Humpers' is a film that delivers exactly one would expect from the title, posters and opening shots. Any semblance of plot is near non-existent here as the trio simply engage in strange and depraved behaviour for the whole 78 minute duration. Some of their mischief is admittedly memorable, such as making two flatmates eat pancakes covered in dishwashing liquid and teaching a well-dressed boy about various pranks, but the vast majority of the film comes off as extremely repetitive due to the very limited plot. It does not help that the film looks unappealing too, shot and edited on grainy VHS with large bouts of video interference. With their high pitched squealing and cackling laughs, the characters are additionally grating to follow around. It is easy enough to appreciate what Korine is trying to do here, presenting three individuals who manage to find enjoyment and fulfillment in life while defying social conventions. There is also a lot to like in the idea to shoot the film on VHS to give the material a found footage appearance, however, whether all this makes for a film that is entertaining, enlightening or at least engaging is highly debatable.

Young provocateur filmmaker Harmony Korine, who lives in and grew up in Nashville, has made a film in trashy cheap VHS that evokes the nightmare world of degenerate southern redneck swine.

He doesn't exactly say that. He explains when talking of the film that growing up, there were some scary old people who used to peek in windows at night, particularly next door where there was a young girl. Now the underpasses and open lots that he roamed as a youth are full of trash, and looking at trash receptacles one day the idea came to him of people humping them. He couldn't get real old people to play his roles so he gathered together a group of friends earlier this year who wear old person masks in the film. A couple of weeks of warming up and a couple of weeks of wandering around and shooting as the cast improvised and the film, like a sketch made on a whim, was done. It's perhaps an antidote to the more elaborate process involved in Korine's last film, 'Mr. Lonely,' a more straightforward film starring Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, and others.

There is no plot, just a series of random scenes. A boy tries and fails to sink a basketball in a hoop. The garbage cans get humped. A screeching old lady rides a small dirt bike around with a baby doll tied dragging behind. The boy takes a hatchet to a doll in a parking lot and tries to chop up its head. A man recites an improvised poem about a nation of trash while one of the masked oldsters sits in a wheelchair and throws out firecrackers at a bunch of balloons. There is some nakedness. There is some nasty talk. There is almost the fear Korine said his wife felt when he played a VHS tape somebody'd given him, that it was going to turn into a snuff film. Korine wanted this to look and feel like found footage, like stuff on a strange videotape found in the trash somewhere. Made by old and demented perverts living a free and aimless life.

Some of the images may evoke various sources such as Diane Arbus or Ralph Eugene Meatyard's still photos (strangeness, retardation, aimlessness, Gothic vacuity), but he denies any such connections. Somebody has suggested Korine is treading on the ground of early John Waters. But Waters has a knack for plot; even Korine's structured 'Kids' scenario rambles. And Waters has a great sense of humor. 'Trash Humpers' is ridiculous -- it's a horror movie that's also a comedy -- but there is no wit in it. It's a kind of improvised voyeurism. It does succeed in wandering well outside the mainstream. Its use of a very primitive kind of VHS reminds us as in a far more complex way did David Lynch's beautiful 'Inland Empire' that seeming "found" footage can be deeply evocative and scary. Even 'Blair Witch Project' comes to mind. Not many filmmakers would have staged a series of casually revolting stunts like those encapsulated randomly and (he says) in order of staging that Korine dumps on us here. It's a statement about limits and about freedom. And it's been acknowledged as valid. Even 'Variety' concludes its review of the film with the line: "Across the board, tech credits are appalling -- in a good way." Korine is an odd one (and an articulate interviewee in the NYFF press Q&A) and for festival and film buff audiences he is a force to reckon with. The question is, what's next? Will he go backwards or forwards?

Dennis Lim has written an appreciative piece on the film for Cinema Scope. "Can the most regressive work yet by an artist known for arrested development also be a sign of his newfound maturity?" Now there's a bit of interpretive convolution for you. And the statement implied by the question may be true. But still the remaining question is, what's next?

Shown as part of the main slate of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center 2009. Premiered at Toronto.

"Make it, don't take it, make it, don't fake it."

Anyone who has ever played with a 90's camcorder will be familiar with the colours and textures seen from the beginning in this film. This is not some nostalgic sun drenched glo-fi romanticism however, this s**t is dark. And this s**t sticks.

The very first scenes are all just seconds long and in them we are introduced to a number of odd looking characters. They appear to be old but clearly with enough vigour to grind/bang/hump/whatever garbage bins and trash pussy as if they were still in their youthful prime. They certainly seem to have much youthful mischief and we watch in a kind of distanced, disgusted trance as they defecate, smash televisions, let off firecrackers and tap dance.

Are we to judge these people? Are they real or are they actors? What will they do next? Will we stick around long enough to find out or will we leave the theatre? Are we laughing with them or at them or worse, are they laughing at us?

The introduction given at the start mentioned Lynch, Hitchcock and Jackass. In the future I think you need only mention Korine. Whether he is saying something intelligent or something dumb about American outsider society, whether he is merely holding up a mirror to us wherever we are we can not say he isn't an original, an auteur and a provocateur. Should this be a film for film students to study or should it be one that the weirdo's in class try and make you watch? The themes thrown up (maybe that should be shat out) are certainly interesting but why on Earth would you want to deconstruct what is essentially a bunch of drunken old juvenile delinquents laughing and embracing failure, f**king trees and living their version of the American dream?

The most shocking parts of the film are the sounds not the visuals, if anything I found it oddly easy to watch after the initial punches in the eyes, my ears however did just not get accustomed. In one scene a man tells the most offensive 'jokes' to a rapt audience, and there are many clips showing just how noisy America is, even at night. There is a constant buzz of electric lights everywhere, there is the traffic and there are the crickets. Its enough to drive someone insane.

This film is beat poetry. This film is soapy pancakes. This film is noise metal. This film is giving a birthday cake to a constipated man sitting on the toilet. This film is a headache. This film is trapping your d**k in your flies.

...but certainly not very good, either.

Believe it or not, there were a few things about this movie that I genuinely liked. I found some of the weird comedy to be hilarious and laughed out loud several times throughout the film. I also thought that Korine did a pretty good job at creating a really dirty and disturbing atmosphere. These elements of both comedy and horror both work to make the movie at least watchable at times, but unfortunately do not save it from being just an overall bad movie.

Perhaps I found it to not be absolutely TERRIBLE only because of how low my expectations were before watching this oddity. I thought it looked like, well, trash-but then I found some highly well done aspects and thought that this movie could possibly be okay, but then it just dragged on and on and on. At just 70 minutes, this is a needlessly long movie that easily could have been half as long and much better.

I would also like to comment on the film's annoying and ugly visual style. It's obvious that it was an experimental, stylistic choice to have the movie shot on crappy looking video, and it does work slightly to the films advantage to make it seem more creepy and trashy, but it just doesn't appeal to me in any way. There's other, more tolerable ways to make your movie look sort of real and dirty.

I would not recommend this movie to most people, but if you're curious enough and a big fan of Harmony Korine's work, I would give it a mild and cautious recommendation.