GUMMO *1/2 out of **** Post-tornado damaged report Flush with success from penning KIDS, Harmony Korine saw an opportunity to direct a film in a manner evoking collage. Now others have trod this way before, most notably Peter Greenaway who, almost a century after the birth of Cubism, has a similar goal in mind for film. Korine's piecemeal approach involves freedom from the tyranny of narrative (more akin to real life, he believes) and its conflation with documentation. If Korine's directorial goals are kept in mind, then GUMMO may be called a success. Others may call it a successful evasion of structure and coherence. Yes, GUMMO (the title's relation to the film is by name only) is like collage: random, fragmentary, disparate. What we have is a series of vignettes and images, recorded variously on film, video, Super-8 and Polaroid, evoking the lives of the young inhabitants of Korine's hometown of Xenia, Ohio (although the film was shot elsewhere). Twenty years ago a tornado struck Xenia but what Korine films remains the damage, or damaged, report. Xenia is apparently inhabited by nothing but the in-your-face unappealing sort, gossip writers included: two boys hunt stray cats (food filler for local restaurants - har!) in exchange for money to buy sniffing glue or sex; another dons bunny ears and roams town less purposefully to pass the time, encountering violence every which way; three sisters seem to be recent graduates of the pre-LARRY FLYNT Courtney Love finishing school; adults pass the night away with booze and bouts of chair wrestling. The total picture formed is akin to that of a freak show. One by one they parade out to amuse, occasionally to attempt to invoke outrage. Korine seems to have taken a hint from the infamous Calvin Klein wood-paneled basement modeling sessions: he films from an eager-to-please, often helpless lot, we leer, at times uncomfortably. This may be Korine's neighbourhood but unlike the prodigal son his return results in further plundering. I felt sorry not for the state of Xenia's supposed inhabitants, but that Korine has exploited them for naught. GUMMO, like a tornado, acts randomly, and its aftermath is equally as depressing. D GUMMO Directed and written by Harmony Korine. U.S.A. 1997 Review completed on September 15, 1997. |