Years after a tornado has wiped out much of their small town in Ohio, leaving behind nothing but memories and decay, a group of young and old characters react in different ways to the boredom and vacuousness that has settled in around them. The kids torture and sell cats, lift weights, and listen to death metal music, while the addle-pated adults seem to have killed off all their brains cells from one substance or another. Made for just over a million dollars, writer-director Harmony Korine's independent film is preconceived to shock with its depravity. To Korine's credit, the stultified atmosphere of the piece is arresting, the cinematography is scarily good, and--though the amateur acting is sometimes facile--the foul, stunted vocabulary and heartless aimlessness of the characters seems pretty truthful. Chloë Sevigny has a small part (and also designed the costumes!) playing a platinum blonde flirting with a skinny, pasty jock who tells her he has ADD; when Korine relaxes a little bit and just engages in their talk (or in sibling roughhousing, or jumping around on the bed to Buddy Holly's "Everyday"), "Gummo" manages to work a bit of primitive magic. However, the main objective (as I can tell) is to show the bestiality which arises in human beings who have nothing else to do but lash out. The anger and betrayal these kids feel isn't necessarily addressed verbally (they seem too uneducated to process a genuine thought or articulate their emotions), but it is visualized for us, sometimes graphically. Viewers can argue endlessly whether or not this depiction of human waste is Art...whether or not it is exploitation, common huckstering, completely dishonest, or enlightening. I certainly can see an askew sense of talent (visual talent, anyway) hovering around the movie's edges, but not much entertainment value. If apathy and abject indifference in our society is really this bad, then there's no hope for any of us. The lunatics are running the asylum. * from ****
Review of Gummo
