The author of this review tries very hard to avoid ratings inflation. In other words, I'm very careful when it comes to giving the highest possible ratings to films. As a principle, films which are recently released never get the highest possible rating. This is reserved only for films that were made years or decades ago and thus had time to prove their real value. With the films that are the opposite of them, the situation is much simpler. What was an inexcusably bad waste of celluloid immediately after its premiere is likely to remain an inexcusably bad waste of celluloid decades later. I'm quite certain that Gummo, the 1997 drama written and directed by Harmony Korine, belongs to such a category.
Korine became famous as the young author of the screenplay for Kids, a controversial film that gave a disturbing and shocking insight into the unhealthy lifestyles of some American teenagers. In his directorial debut, Korine goes further and portrays even more disturbing characters and the way they spend their time. The plot, or what goes for a plot, is set in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that was ravaged by a tornado in the 1970s. The community has never recovered, and most of the children, left without parental supervision and any hope for a meaningful future, indulged in sex, drug abuse, animal cruelty and the most depraved forms of social pathology.
There were some critics who called Gummo "brave", "uncompromising" or "powerful". There were some who tried to portray this film as an ultra-naturalistic depiction of American realities that Hollywood never touches. There were even some who called Korine a genius. Most of those views probably tell us less about the film and more about the people who expressed them. Like in too many similar cases, mere straying from the conventions of mainstream Hollywood or good taste is mistaken for important works of art.
The problem with Gummo is that it isn't particularly original or even as shocking as its author would like to believe. Everything that sets Gummo apart from "normal" films - the lack of plot, the cinema verite style of filmmaking, the use of non-professional cast, ultra-bizarre characters and ultra-naturalistic portrayals of the most depraved human acts possible - was, in one way or another, employed in other films decades ago. Needless to say, in all of those cases, the people behind the camera were either more talented or more experienced than Harmony Korine. And, unlike Gummo, all those films had something called a purpose. That purpose was either to point towards some issues or simply to entertain the audience in some unorthodox way.
The only purpose in Gummo is to shock viewers into believing that they are watching a work of art. The audience willing to endure this atrocity could be shocked only with the sad realisation that Korine honestly believed that he could get away with it. The acting in the film is bad, the direction is bad, hardly anything happens in the film and what does happen is less shocking than utterly boring. No matter how hard Korine tries, a parade of physically and mentally handicapped people is gradually less shocking as the film approaches its end. When the end comes, Gummo has already lost its purpose and most viewers have endured the most unpleasant hour and a half of their lives.
RATING: 1/10 (--)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on March 23rd 2004)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/18415-gummo Critic: A
