Gummo (Korine, 1997): Genesis Cinema, 9pm
This 35mm screening is part of the Genesis Cinema 24th Birthday season. Details here.
Chicago Reader review:
Written and directed by Harmony Korine, who wrote Kids,
this poetically disjointed narrative (1997) also follows young people
engaged in nihilistic activities and has an ambiguous relationship to
both documentary and fiction filmmaking—but none of the earlier movie's
prurience or condescension. Killing cats is a pastime and source of
income for two boys (Jacob Reynolds and Nick Sutton) who sniff a lot of
glue in a town identified as Xenia, Ohio. Much of their behavior and the
behavior of other people in the movie was surely guided if not
predetermined by Korine, yet few of the performers appear to be actors
in scripted roles. In one scene a woman (who was previously shown
mothering a doll) shaves off her eyebrows. Filling one hand with shaving
cream and trying to use the other to keep her bangs out of the way as
well as wield a razor, she exhibits a startling absence of intelligence.
Crooned ballads and metal music enhance scenes of perversely enchanting
power, and a voice-over tells us in gory detail how a tornado
devastated Xenia years before, as if to explain the strangely passive
violence in a town where everyone's reason for existence seems to be
breaking taboos. The director of photography is Jean Yves Escoffier.
Lisa Alspector
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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