Search - Gummo on DVD

Strange, sick, mesmerizing, surreal

Tobias K. | Aachen, Germany | 12/02/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have just seen this movie, and I must say it is ambivalent. Very sick passages and ideas (wacko-kids from rural areas living out bizarre passions and experiencing strange situations), but the film has indeed very funny moments as well (e.g. the chair-squashing). There is no plot, nor is a plot intended. The surreal camera work, the "main" story being interrupted by rural persons talking about themselves (which is largely silly), the soundtrack containing grotesque songs at times (Death Metal, sick children choirs etc.) - all this reminds me a bit of Jim Jarmusch's "Permanent Vacation" (1982), an equally surreal film (if you liked Gummo, you should watch this!). The point I want to make here is: this is actually a MOVIE. Other reviewers have complained about a wrong picture concerning beautiful Ohio and about the film having no impact on them (funny then, why do they write reviews?). A cynical and surreal movie as Gummo is not a report - it is a point of view (or have you ever seen Terminators walking around in New York City?). This point of view may not be pleasing, nor elevating, nor relaxing - it forces one to think (even by being disgusting at times). And everything that makes one think, every such thorn in the flesh - is true art."

Mixed Feelings

E. Levine | Madison, WI USA | 10/30/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Honestly, I don't know how to feel about this film. The formal structure of the film is brilliant. Korine uses a collage style that mixes film, digital video, home movies, and photos. He employs not a conventional linear narrational structure, but a more associational, non-linear logic that resembles poetry rather film. This idea of form has great potential, but I don't know that Korine fulfills that potential. Gummo is so reference-heavy (much like the poetry of T.S. Eliot) that it's almost impossible to understand all of the connections Korine makes and to understand the metaphors. Many of the images he uses (like Bunny Boy) have the potential to be symbolic, but in an interview on the special features of the DVD, Korine explains that like Bunny Boy and the title, Gummo, a lot of the images and references were things that he chose just because he liked them and wanted to see them in a movie. To attribute symbolic meaning to these things may be beneficial for the viewer as a personal exercise, and if an audience is affected by the associations they make on their own, that's great. However, I think that giving the credit to Korine just because he chose images he simply likes may be unwarranted.

I also think that Korine also uses a lot of shocking material for the sake of shock. Gummo is set in Xenia, Ohio (though actually shot near Nashville) and focuses on the poverty-stricken society that strives to exist in the aftermath of a tornado (although attributing the state of the town on the tornado seems like a red herring). So much of what the film depicts is pretty disturbing. We see kids who kill cats and huff glue, a man who prostitutes his sister with downs syndrome, and a girl who describes the sexual abuse she receives regularly at home, just to cite a few scenes. Most of the characters are violent, racist, and ignorant, and many of the actors are actually members of the surrounding community who are playing themselves. As a result, I sometimes feel like Korine is exploiting them as freaks. This especially concerns me in the scenes involving Ellen, the mentally disabled woman who is shown shaving her eyebrows off. I'm worried that Korine is somehow trying to benefit from the spectacle of this image, and the shock value it has, which I find cheap. I think Korine does a lot to shock his viewers and not much in the way of making us sympathize with his characters, especially those who are violent and racist.

Fans of the movie often defend Korine's intentions by arguing that he is attempting to show that although these people seem like lowlifes and freaks, they are still beautiful and interesting in their own right. I do agree that they are beautiful and interesting, but I don't think that Korine is responsible for giving us that. He is so busy showing us the gutter of humanity that when he does attempt to show us the beauty, it's buried under the hatred, violence, and abuse the characters subject each other to. Korine doesn't show us beauty overpowering the grotesque, though perhaps he attempts to. What we end up with is beauty buried under the grotesque. For that reason, I don't think the actual thematic content of the film lives up to the potential given by the form Korine has created. Each time I see Gummo, I walk away feeling pretty indifferent about the characters, like I haven't learned anything I didn't know before. I don't think anyone can presume to know what Korine "meant" by the film or if there was any greater intention at all. If there was, I think Korine's attempts to express it were ineffective."