Ms Blossom
This film had so many disturbing and just flat out disgusting things in it that I don't even know where to begin. And the worst part was that the disgusting bits served no purpose, I felt, other than to gross us out. I won't go into too much detail, but I don't think you should watch this film if you don't like to be made to vomit or kept awake at night. It was pointless and just downright nasty!The only thing that kept be from giving this film a lower number of stars was the fact that some of the shots were quite well done, from a purely artistic standpoint, although I was unable to fully appreciate them due to the other weird and gross things happening in this movie. A boy takes a bath in dirty poop water and when he drop his candy bar in he just takes it out and eats it like nothing happened. It's sick sick sick and I don't recommend it.
Gary Ganu (techboxx)
Excellent, raw, real , order of the tribe A film that takes a snapshot of real America Pulls no punches to the devastation and grittiness of society. Get a copy of this film on beta-max, videodisc, VHS, laser-disc, DVD, Bray, 4k, 16k In the seed vault in Antarctica, just a Lil shelf in one of the corners they are not using for seeds. Need to save this for the future generations when they are sifting though the rubble and dust left over from the thermonuclear wasteland that humans will leave. Everything about this film is slick cinematography. So there's that I think is a good idea. Excellent choreography of the chair and table wrestling while sharing some cold ones.
zombieman1978
Harmony Korine is one of the most provocative filmmakers who ever shot a frame. There (As far as I can tell) isn't a single taboo that's off the table with him, from underage sex, to incest, animal cruelty and twisted family values. In 1995, Larry Clark's controversial teen sex epic Kids, written by Korine, was released to wide acclaim and even wider controversy. Impressed by the acclaim his screenplay received, Fine Line Pictures (The "Indy" arm of New Line Cinema) gave Korine $1,000,000.00 and carte blanche to make any film he wanted as his directorial debut. After about six months of principal photography, this is what the result was.......Gummo plays like the bastard lovechild of David Lynch and John Waters with the nastiness cranked up to eleven. It maintains a stream-of-consciousness state without ever getting caught up in anything that can be considered a plot. Instead, we weave in and out of several people's lives in the crumbling town of Xenia, Ohio. In a truly unsettling opening voice-over, Solomon (Jacob Reynolds), one of the leads (If you can call him that) describes a disastrous tornado that hit their town in the seventies. He describes the destruction in ways that are absolutely devoid of empathy, with lines like: "My neighbor was killed in that house. He used to ride bikes and three-wheelers. They never found his head. I always thought that was funny." It appears that Xenia never bounced back from that, leaving it's residents to while their lives away doing drugs, drinking, and other much more (And I mean much MUCH more) nefarious acts. The film has no real plot, which mirrors the lives of it's characters, who simply go about their daily, filthy lives with no real concept of the future. The town becomes almost a human dumping ground, devoid of any authority of any kind.Gummo is a brilliant, once in a lifetime kind of movie. If the above description doesn't grab you, that's not even the tip of the iceberg in terms of what's on display here. The aforementioned stream-of-consciousness format perfectly puts you in this world. It gains a documentary feel as we have a series of vingettes that sometimes come off as out-and-out interviews. These scenes are especially unnerving when you find out that a great many of these people are not real actors, and they're not reading a script. Gummo is both hyper-realistic and surrealistic. There are a great many sequences in the film that are all too real-looking (The aforementioned interview vingettes, tales of incestuous sexual abuse, glue sniffing) and there are moments that are so absurd, you can't believe your eyes (Namely, a young boy, simply referred to as "Bunny Boy" on account of the fact that he tr traipses around this collection of human wreckage with nothing more than a pair of shorts, tennis shoes and a big pair of pink rabbit ears. I'm not making this up) The aforementioned Bunny Boy acts almost like the audience, seeing all this dysfunction with a look of detachment on his face.The cinematography of Gummo is one of the liveliest aspects of the film. Employing grainy 16 and 8mm, video, and pristine-looking 35mm, it juts back and forth between styles so quickly that you never have a moment to catch your breath. And why should you? Harmony Korine has so much to show you. It never stays one way for too long, keeping everything moving at a good clip.Let it be known, there is no hope in this film. While the movie never fully condones the actions of it's (Often) despicable characters, it never truly demonizes them either. These are lost souls, left to their own devices in a place where there are no repercussions for their actions (In one scene, the character of Tummler (Nick Sutton) is seen talking on a payphone, holding a dead cat by a rope around it's neck, with people and cars passing by, no one paying any attention to what he's doing) There is also never a sign of any police. law and Order are a myth in this place. As they go about their scummy lives, we see no future for them. Just as well, since they don't either. Therein lies the tragedy of the film.I've left out some of the more memorable (That's putting it lightly) moments, as they've been mentioned before. However, if this, by some divine miracle, happens to be the only review you read before seeing the film, I hope you are just as shocked as I was. You'll thank me later.
Roor_Bong
The first time I watched Gummo it seemed off putting then watched it a second time and realized it's beautiful raw view of personalities. The films follows characters from a community of interesting personalities so strange that it may seem hard to watch. Gummo is a blank canvas that was splashed with all sorts of Colors. Colors that you don't see normally. Burgundy, off white, turquoise and the army green. Dot is a turquoise wave I want to ride with. Gummo has a creepiness that feels childhood is being violated. Harmony Kiore's warped adventure holds your eyes to the screen.The music brings you up and down from sing a longs to dark heavy music. A deeply pleasurable film I highly recommend. samhain666klik
