Gummo

Gummo is a nonlinear narrative centered around the residents of Xenia, Ohio. After a tornado devastated their town the surviving residents pass the time by any sadistic means possible. A long day of feral cat hunting ends with a brief discussion of crème brûlée before a session of glue huffing, followed by a visit to a local prostitute suffering from Down Syndrome. It's as if Deliverance and Apocalypse Now had a child, abused it, and left it to its own devices. Horrifying is a word that comes to mind when attempting to evaluate this film. Drunken chair-wrestling, random acts of molestation, and casual conversations ranging in topics from cat burnings to their general dislike of African Americans are pretty typical. The only thing more trash filled, filthy, and septic then their homes, is their gene pool. Life in rural Ohio has never seemed so nihilistic. Though disturbing, I found this to be a quietly beautiful film. Both hyper-real and utterly surreal, it's stylized aesthetic is perfectly suited for the subject and premise. Rich symbolism and unforgettable images demand ones attention in an unrelenting assault on the Status Que. Unsettling and humbling, we are given a glimpse of inbred Americana straddling the border of malignant sadism and total insanity. The story telling style of Harmony Korine reminds me of the work of Terrence Malick, with the addition of a little incest.

I will admit that the reason I rented this movie was because of the numerous reviews that I read about how unbelievably bad and pointless this film was. It only took me a few minutes to realize why so many critics hated it, which was the very reason I liked this film.

Gummo is a classic case of style over substance. If you're looking for plot development, you'd better go rent Good Will Hunting or something like that. But if you want to see a movie that is cutting-edge and well ahead of its time, then rent this one. I praise the director for simply doing something different.

What impressed me the most about this film was the framing of one memorable image after another. I think Director Korine was trying to leave people with impressions and feelings. Whether you like this film or not, its impossible to forget. Plus, this film has what I think is one of the greatest lines in recent movie history. A little girl, holding a picture of Burt Reynolds with the mouth ripped out, chants incessantly, "I want a moustache, dammit!"

This movie is worth the three bucks to rent it if nothing more than to see the scene where a fat redneck takes out his aggression on a kitchen chair while his friends cheer him on. It's more frightening than anything in the Scream series.

Gummo is a film of substance, a rare thing in this time of Estee Lauder actresses and pec enhanced tree trunks stumbling around the kindergarten dialogue. Reality TV before it became anachronistic. A film that demands a second viewing to truly understand the director's vision is a rare thing; my initial impression was of a mockery of Red Necked America, but now after several viewings I understand it as a celebration of the sidelined aspect of American culture. Unafraid to pull its punches, unafraid to deal with the shocking, the jarring, the discomforting; it is a film that is mostly about killing cats and sniffing glue. Possibly a freak show, but one done in the style of the old freak shows - the freaks call the shots and they revel in their opportunities. A piece best enjoyed at 5 am on a Sunday morning after burning the midnight oil, when your nerves are raw and you need something with bite to cut through the fog. Nobody has created such vivid set pieces and each time you review the film there is a new mullet to admire, a chair to be beaten, a Down's Syndrome prostitute to mull over. Prepare to be shocked and provoked whilst being entertained; when the film finishes you are compelled to take stock of what you have seen and in my eyes that is what films are for. A hearty thumbs up.

I have trouble with the comments of users who find no emotional attachment to sad characters. Those who state that all the characters in this film wouldn't be missed if a tornado did wipe them out - isn't this the ultimate prejudice? Isn't it telling that these people have no sympathy for characters that are children who've been given no other options? Could it be that the pervasiveness of this attitude is exactly why there seems to be no cure for the plight of poverty?

Could it possibly be that THIS is the point of this film?

So few want to get inside the real problems to understand what's going on. It is impossible to understand anything fully from the outside looking in. I think films (and books, and music, and lectures, etc.) like this are needed to counteract the fantasies that we regularly accept as reality. Is this reality for most people? No, probably not, but it is for some and all stories need telling. In a world-view where wrestling chairs and killing pets are considered acceptable and worthwhile activities, would we really expect to feel a sense of plot or unfolding or striving? The point, it seems to me, is that for people trapped in these situations, there is no point, no goals, no worthwhile transformations. They can't even begin to see these things. All that's left by this tragedy of human existence is meaningless, chaotic, confusing experiences that seem to make no sense, and ill-conceived rushes to relieve the frustration and anxiety in whatever means seem readily available. Do you understand why people cut themselves to feel better? Or starve themselves? Or abuse people? I don't. But for our culture's sake, I hope some people care enough to try to find out.

Tragedy, for anyone who has ever personally experienced it, leaves one without faith, hope, or any possibility of transcendence. Without these higher-level world-views, we revert to self-protective mere survival. When this strikes a larger community, it has disastrous effects. This film shows just how fragile our safety net of community, progress, and culture really are - how easily they can be unraveled.

I know it's hard for us to see this. How can these characters not see that there is a better way available? Don't they watch TV or movies? Don't they see what we see? But this is precisely the point we have to understand. They really don't. People who live in ghettos don't get degrees because they don't even know that they can. They believe that these areas are for others, not them. We'll never understand class problems if we don't try to see them from all perspectives.

I, too, felt horrified to find myself on the "inside" of this lifestyle - something I hope never to do in a non-filmic experience. This is the genius to which people are referring - the director and actors' ability to draw those of us for whom these are alien experiences directly and completely into this hopeless, pointless world. We actually feel the dread, frustration, meaninglessness that people caught in these circumstances experience.

This is why I read, go to movies, listen to music and experience all art - to experience life from the many different perspectives available. If you only want to be entertained - there really are only a few stories to tell and there are many "artists" out there willing to serve you the same McArt to "satisfy" your needs, but for those of us who would like to know more about something other than ourselves and our ethnocentric, narcissistic experiences, movies like Gummo will always be admired. And there's nothing wrong with entertainment. I like it too. But don't judge films like this based on that standard. It isn't fair. You don't say "I don't like Mozart because it doesn't have a beat I can dance to." Or maybe you do. And so, you should be able to understand how some people have no way to access another transcendent point of view.

I also have to make a comment about the "meaninglessness" of the bunny suit boy. I didn't understand the symbolism either - and according the director's comments, there doesn't seem to be any - at least not in any direct, conscious way. And this is probably difficult for any non-artist to understand, but sometimes instinct doesn't take on any direct symbolic reference but is still important. Artist's trust their instincts and don't always have to have everything make sense in a literal sense. In fact, it is generally agreed that works of art that are too directly symbolic, or too literal lose much of the magic that makes art special in the first place. I'm not condoning ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity, but the bunny suit seemed so absurdist to me that it set the tone for the absurdity that followed. In a strange way, it seemed hopeful. This effect isn't lessened by the director's inability to explain why it was important. The fact is, it was important on some instinctive level or it wouldn't have been cut in.

Listen to any of your favorite music and try to find a "plot" or a "meaning" for each and every line and note. Unless you listen exclusively to bad country and western I think you'll get this point. A lot of people think other forms of art have more responsibility to be crystal clear, but I doubt most of us prefer these same attributes in our music. If you understand half of what you sing along to, you are among the few. I think the problem is that most of us expect something different from film, art, novels because we've been fed so much crap that (similar to my kids when they come back from a week at a friend or family member's house where fast food is the daily fare) we cannot taste the goodness of real meals. Think about it.

Set in Xenia, Ohio, Gummo feels like a deliberate riposte to Hollywood by its creator, Harmony Korine, whose penchant for subversion was already evident in his screen writing debut for Larry Clark's Kids (1995). Eschewing linear narrative, Korine explores, through the use of vignettes and bizarre episodes, the cat-killing escapades of its two protagonists and weaves this quest around a set of unrelated but bizarre events taking place in Xenia. There is no sense of a story, only a mood, and that mood fluctuates wildly from revulsion to surprise. By giving voice to those marginalized from society, Korine paints a startling portrait of landlocked America, one at odds with the Hollywood cliché of its inhabitants. There are many unforgettable scenes and yet it's not an enjoyable film, but it challenges, provokes and pushes the margins - and that in itself is worthy.