Trash Humpers

"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.

If I was still 15 years old I would probably have thought of it as daring and provocative and enjoyed it for the very same reason. But since I'm not fifteen anymore thats not good enough.

The first 30 minutes of the film I kind of enjoyed. Weird people doing weird things, well I can go for that, but the movie should have ended after about 30 minutes. There is no plot at all and you don't get to know any of the characters so there is simply nothing to be curious about in the movie. You don't give a s**t about what happens to any of the characters or how the movie will end.

The only thing that left me after having seen the move was a bade taste in my mouth and I couldn't say anything about it besides that the song/saying "Make it make it, make it, don't fake it, make it, make it..." was quite funny.

Personally I think highly of Harmony Korines earlier work and I guess he is just taking the p**s with this movie. If it will be well written of and seen as a work of a genius, I think he will be as surprised as I will be. But if he decides to cut it down to a short movie, than I say go for it.

I saw TRASH HUMPERS at a screening in L.A. where Harmony Korine was there to introduce it and also do a Q&A afterwards.

I was wildly disappointed with the lame array of questions that were thrown at him. Probably 90% were brainless, pointless, and uninteresting.

The question I wanted to ask him was "is Trash Humpers in any way a statement or mockery on TRASH ART in general?".

To me, this is how the movie came across. With a name like Trash Humpers, what else can you expect? It is one of the most pointless and trashiest movies I have ever seen - but that is exactly what I came for, and it effectively delivered that.

It's full of humping, cussing, assorted offensive jokes, violence, vandalism, religion bashing, and anything else you'd expect in a trash art film. The difference is that with most trash art, the point is to try to shock you, scar you, or offend you. Trash Humpers, to me, seems more like it's doing these things in such a way that it's all a big joke - to take all of the other movies that have already done it, and re-enact them while giggling.

After all, I feel that movies really are coming to a point where it is nearly impossible to shock people through exploitative sex, violence, etc. So why not find a nice comfortable place where we can live in that kind of world for an hour and a half and not try to shock anyone? We can just float through it and accept this demoralized joke of a world - that's the world that Trash Humpers creates to me.

Unfortunately, when you start mocking your own genre or personal style of art, along with that comes the instinctive drive to take it to a far enough level where you are pushing people away. I felt that with several obnoxious things repeating throughout the film (such as Harmony's character constantly YELLING in your ear through entire scenes from right behind the camera) - he was showing signs of this kind of behavior. This is something I have observed from my own experiences as part of artistic projects, as well as observing friends mocking their own work. I have watched this kind of behavior occur with a lot of people towards the end of their artistic cycle.

Of course, my interpretation of the movie could be completely off from how Harmony sees it. But, it's nice to have different perspectives isn't it? I enjoyed it - especially the fact that I got to see it in a theater with Harmony in attendance. But, I don't know if I'd ever want to watch it again. We'll always have Gummo for those endless viewings...

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.

...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.