| Julien (Ewen Bremner, The
Acid House) isn’t the most normal kid
you will find in cinema today. His overbearing,
wrestling-obsessed German father (Werner Herzog)
consumes entire bottles of cough syrup before
prancing around the house wearing a gas mask and
offering his sons $10 to wear Mother’s
wedding dress. His pregnant sister Pearl (Chloë
Sevigny, The Last Days of Disco) also
dances – ballet – and calls Julien on
the phone pretending to be their dead mother.
Brother Chris (Evan Neumann) wrestles trashcans. The trashcan
wrestling, for those of you that weren’t
lucky enough to see Gummo, is somewhat of
an homage to the chair wrestling in
writer/director Harmony Korine’s debut film.
Gummo, a critically maligned freak-fest,
was a distinctive masterpiece about two kids that
hunted and killed neighborhood cats and sold them
to the local grocery store, which turned them
into fresh ground chuck. Sure, it sounds like
something to avoid, but the movie was visually
stunning, using different film stock together
with still photographs to create a shocking rural
nightmare. It even made my Top Ten List in 1997.
Korine’s
new film, however, is a totally different
nightmare altogether. Officially the first
American film (and sixth overall) to meet the
strict rules of the Danish "Dogme"
group (no flashbacks, no artificial light/sound,
etc.), julien donkey-boy is a mess. The
story is virtually non-existent and, because of
the Dogme restraints, the film is much darker and
considerably more grainy than Gummo. Which
leaves only the cavalcade of freaks, including an
old man who eats lit cigarettes, a guy with no
arms that plays the drums and does card tricks,
and a black albino that fancies himself a rapper,
repeating "I’m the black albino down
from Alabama." And don’t get me started
on the retard bowling.
I
wasn’t sure if Julien was supposed to be
retarded or not. He would certainly seem to be if
surrounded by a few normal characters. Bremner is
also a dead ringer for Rochester Raging Rhinos
midfielder Mauro Biello. His performance is gutsy
and somewhat effective, as I actually wondered if
he may actually have a neurological disorder.
After all, he did play similar roles in Trainspotting
and The Acid House.
Korine
explained, after the screening I attended, that
he was approached to join the Dogme group after Gummo
and that the filming of julien donkey-boy
was closely monitored by several Danish
supervisors. The movie was mostly improvised
(save the phone call between Julien and his dead
mom) and Korine used about thirty digital cameras
during filming. Korine preferred the initial cut
of the film, which ran at an ungodly
six-and-a-half hours, and, when asked if the
picture was real in any way, stated that the
picture was based on "a true
inspiration."
1:34
–  for mild violence,
adult language and situations
|
