After gaining some notoriety writing the screenplay for Larry Clark’s Kids, Harmony Korine ventured to direct and debut his raw cult classic, Gummo. Screening last month in its newly 4K restoration, Korine’s 1997 film focuses on a small tornado-stricken town of Xenia in Ohio. With voiceovers and camcorder footage, the film portrays a documentarian-style exploration of American misfits in their day to day lives. Starring rising actress Chloë Sevigny as Dot and biker pals Solomon (Jacob Reynolds) and Tummler (Nick Sutton), Gummo depicts marginalized and aimless characters in a most unfiltered light, digging at the gritty underbelly of youth culture.
Often casting non-actors to fill his roles, Korine worked with an array of personalities to capture meandering scenes and snippets of characters that wholly convince the audience they are simply portraying themselves. Hardly older than his adolescent cast at the time, Korine also inserts himself in one particular segment, drunkenly rambling on a grimy living room couch about his desperate loneliness and family issues in an attempt to gain some degree of affection. Often the script feels abandoned, replaced by improvisation both in physicality and conversation. Scenes of late night kitchen arm wrestling turn into utter destruction, while more tranquil moments of a drug-induced haze lead to existential curiosities.
Tying in lush ballads from Roy Orbison to stoner-rock tracks from Sleep, Gummo’s soundtrack sinks into the audience’s psyche and brings even more life into Ohio’s suburbia. Whether it’s teenage girls jumping on their beds during sleepovers to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” or mother-son pep-talks including a basement tap dancing session (played by the incredible Linda Manz), music brings another layer of vivaciousness to Korine’s teenage wasteland. Even the film’s infamous floppy-eared Bunny Boy (Jacob Sewell) remains mute throughout the entirety of the film, yet lures the viewer in a trance with his non-verbal introspective expressions and solo accordion playing in a vacant restroom.
While Gummo wouldn’t traditionally be placed in the horror genre, it still showcases its name next to the uncomfortable, often cited as a movie worth viewing once then never again (Korine would also likely scoff at trigger warnings, regardless of his scenes of cruelty to felines interspersed throughout the film). While Korine is entirely transparent in his depiction of eccentric nonconformists, his directorial choices never sidle over to the side of pity or shame for his characters. In a society where the majority of Xenia’s community would be overlooked and ignored, Gummo shines a lens on the stark realism of insular adolescent despondency, inner turmoil, and simply as a means of living the best they know how.
