GUMMO - Harmony Korine - 1997

I could start my reviews here talking about any movie I've ever seen, but maybe because of the level of intensity that I was touched by this one in particular, I thought it would be a good idea to give this space here for him. Not because it won any grand prize or became an icon for an intriguing script with complex pieces that fit together and cause that "mind blowing" feeling to the viewers. But because of the level of discomfort and disturbance and, at the same time, the purity with which it represented a layer of society that was still very little explored in the 90s.

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Harmony Korine was still an unknown and obscure young man in the cinematographic world when in 1997 he decided to bring together a lot of unknown actors and several bizarre extras to represent a replica of the disturbingly real and bitter life of any small town in the interior of the United States. To be more specific, this was his first film. But his name was already relatively controversial, because after all, as the legend goes: Korine, about twenty-two years old skateboarding in a park in New York, was stopped by the photographer and director (also unconventional) Larry Clark who asked the boy if he couldn't write him a realistic and raw script about his and his friends' daily lives, to adapt to an idea he had to show the AIDS theme in youth. Korine literally said that she has waited her whole life for such an opportunity. And so it was created one of the most iconic and intense youth films on drugs, rebellion, sex and ... what else do teenagers do? The film was KIDS. At some other time it is convenient to talk about him here. But let's get back to the facts. Korine gained space and reputation with her raw and brutal world view, in a look so young and so sincere. From there to shoot his first feature film was a leap, and three years later, GUMMO was on display.

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There is not much to give a realistic synopsis of Gummo, not because the scenes are too experimental to be described, but because the film has more to do with the viewer's immersion in that absurd reality and in the raw and brutal agony exposed than with any plot reported. We have several iconic characters and not as absurd as so many people with no names that we see walking around the world. Boys who sell dead cats to a rotten shop owner, a couple of young lovers trying to get laid in an old iron, a boy eating pasta while bathing in a dirty bathtub with water that is certainly reused over and over again, the boy with rabbit ears who wanders through a chaotic and dirty, cold and uncomfortable city, even the city is a living character in history. Xenia in Ohio was devastated by a tornado just before the film was shot and in a lyrical way, Korine takes advantage of this idea of ​​chaos and devastation to show the dark and aimless routine of the inhabitants of this part of nowhere. As I mentioned, the film has much more to do with feeling than understanding. A viewer who is expecting any logic will not have a good experience, but for those who like cinema experience, accurate and careful photography, a philosophical contemplation of society, will certainly have quite a trip.

Korine also had a very interesting career with other films that were much less experimental and even had a great deal of space in the media, some better and others worse, but nothing will come close to the level of viscerality present in Gummo. To give you a taste of the film, I leave you the trailer here: