If you've never lived in a small midwestern town (predominately white, predominately poor) then I suppose that the immediate power of this film would be lost on you, though it's really not that hard to translate the myriad of sick and twisted characters in Gummo to whatever community you live in. I have been a poor white person my entire life and although I've never come across a retarded girl being pimped out by her brother or a pair of kids killing cats to sell to a Chinese joint for meat, I have cut through the back yards and sat beneath the windows of the buildings where these kinds of things may very well have happened. They most likely didn't, of course. But they just might have...
Gummo is a look at things that just might be. What Might Be going on down the street. What horrible secrets Might your neighbors Be hiding? We all play this game; we think of the worst things that people might do, and we hope, in a sick way, that they might actually be doing them.
"Old Man Johnson, with the hook for the hand? You know he got that hook reaching into the woman's bathroom in the school, some girl took a knife and just cut it off." "The guy across the street, and I heard this from Judy who is friends with his ex-wife, she says that he used to dress up like a clown and give out candy, but one day he was caught with this little kid, doing stuff. What you mean, what kind of stuff. Dirty stuff, you know." Sometimes these displays are ridiculous and funny, sometimes they're disgusting, and sometimes they're truly horrible, but they are always enthralling. Gummo is a series of these displays.
No, there isn't a cohesive plot and I know that more than a few simple film goers will be genuinely confused and possibly even angered by this point (I might suggest that these people go watch some Buñuel, or at least try not to have such a narrow conception of film). Gummo really acts more like a portrait than a traditional film, playing on the viewer's emotions through characters instead of plot.
There are no social or political implications to Gummo, which may lead to the mistaken but commonly-held belief that this is somehow an exploitation film. This is not a story of a town in need of a savior that will not come or even of problems that need to be solved. The lack of narrative ensures a lack of message: this is a neither a criticism nor a sympathetic portrait. It's a raw feed, without morals, and it's shot and acted so realistically that it might seem as if Korine were shoot a faux-documentary. The characters are just exaggerations of people that you may have come across, characters that you've already created--the ADD boy who plays tennis and has the world's coolest mullet, the young girls who put electric tape on their nipples to make them perkier, the creepy little glue-sniffing boys who murder housecats and pay to sleep with a retarded girl. These aren't real people and Korine doesn't want you to think that they are. They are merely what we've always thought our neighbors capable of and we've always, in a sick way, almost wanted to believe. Why else would urban legends stick around so long? Why else is most disgusting gossip usually the most interesting? Gummo gives us all what we want, unflinchingly, and doesn't ask to be thanked.
Gummo is a look at things that just might be. What Might Be going on down the street. What horrible secrets Might your neighbors Be hiding? We all play this game; we think of the worst things that people might do, and we hope, in a sick way, that they might actually be doing them.
"Old Man Johnson, with the hook for the hand? You know he got that hook reaching into the woman's bathroom in the school, some girl took a knife and just cut it off." "The guy across the street, and I heard this from Judy who is friends with his ex-wife, she says that he used to dress up like a clown and give out candy, but one day he was caught with this little kid, doing stuff. What you mean, what kind of stuff. Dirty stuff, you know." Sometimes these displays are ridiculous and funny, sometimes they're disgusting, and sometimes they're truly horrible, but they are always enthralling. Gummo is a series of these displays.
No, there isn't a cohesive plot and I know that more than a few simple film goers will be genuinely confused and possibly even angered by this point (I might suggest that these people go watch some Buñuel, or at least try not to have such a narrow conception of film). Gummo really acts more like a portrait than a traditional film, playing on the viewer's emotions through characters instead of plot.
There are no social or political implications to Gummo, which may lead to the mistaken but commonly-held belief that this is somehow an exploitation film. This is not a story of a town in need of a savior that will not come or even of problems that need to be solved. The lack of narrative ensures a lack of message: this is a neither a criticism nor a sympathetic portrait. It's a raw feed, without morals, and it's shot and acted so realistically that it might seem as if Korine were shoot a faux-documentary. The characters are just exaggerations of people that you may have come across, characters that you've already created--the ADD boy who plays tennis and has the world's coolest mullet, the young girls who put electric tape on their nipples to make them perkier, the creepy little glue-sniffing boys who murder housecats and pay to sleep with a retarded girl. These aren't real people and Korine doesn't want you to think that they are. They are merely what we've always thought our neighbors capable of and we've always, in a sick way, almost wanted to believe. Why else would urban legends stick around so long? Why else is most disgusting gossip usually the most interesting? Gummo gives us all what we want, unflinchingly, and doesn't ask to be thanked.