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Gummo (1997)

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364 comments in total

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58 out of 73 people found the following comment useful :-
A Surprisingly Unique Movie, 10 January 1999
Author: (cjshan@concentric.net) from Peoria, IL

I will admit that the reason I rented this movie was because of the numerous reviews that I read about how unbelievably bad and pointless this film was. It only took me a few minutes to realize why so many critics hated it, which was the very reason I liked this film.

Gummo is a classic case of style over substance. If you're looking for plot development, you'd better go rent Good Will Hunting or something like that. But if you want to see a movie that is cutting-edge and well ahead of its time, then rent this one. I praise the director for simply doing something different.

What impressed me the most about this film was the framing of one memorable image after another. I think Director Korine was trying to leave people with impressions and feelings. Whether you like this film or not, its impossible to forget. Plus, this film has what I think is one of the greatest lines in recent movie history. A little girl, holding a picture of Burt Reynolds with the mouth ripped out, chants incessantly, "I want a moustache, dammit!"

This movie is worth the three bucks to rent it if nothing more than to see the scene where a fat redneck takes out his aggression on a kitchen chair while his friends cheer him on. It's more frightening than anything in the Scream series.

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59 out of 82 people found the following comment useful :-
Uniquely compelling film that is not for people with closed-minds, 18 September 2001

Author: Dan Shearing from England

Well, I'd heard a lot about this film before I bought it, but nothing I was told really prepared me for how different this film is from anything else I've seen. On first viewing, Gummo appears to be a collection of random events, but after watching it a few more times, it it becomes more obvious how each scene and character link together (although there are still a few that I am unsure of!!). The nearest analogy I can think of is of a music album. Each scene is like a song that can be enjoyed on its own, but when the album is listened to as a whole it becomes much more than just a collection of songs, all linked in their own way. Plus, like a great album, the more times you listen\watch, the more you get out of it.

People will criticise this film for having no plot and to start with I agreed, but if you work hard to understand the film then you will get much more reward and enjoyment then from most Hollywood blockbuster's. The beauty of Gummo really is that there are so many questions that you can and will watch it again and again and get something different every time. This film is reasonably short, but it is probably the only film I have seen where every scene has worked. I am a very difficult viewer to please, but every scene in this film kept me enthralled and I did not want to fast forward once, even in the times I have watched it since (about 15 times!!)

A magnificent film, and a great directorial debut from a name to watch in the future - Harmony Korine.

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56 out of 84 people found the following comment useful :-
Incredible, Shocking, Beautiful, Moving, 1 August 2001

Author: VK-Fail from London, England

This film is a unique moment. People who knock it for lack of "plot", or characters have missed the point. For a start the characters are an incredibly rich mixture of people and personalities, who are far more interesting than most Hollywood blank, 2D, characters. While there may not be a plot, it doesn't need one because the different stories it tells weave together perfectly and you get a great picture of the town and its residents.

The film is shot brilliantly as well, Korine using so many different techniques so effectively. The editing is the same, bringing all the different parts together superbly In short, one of the best films ever. Ever. OK.

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31 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
beautiful, 20 March 2004
Author: flavorsoftruth23 from shelbyville

I lived in a trailer camp myself as a kid. It was a step up from where we were living before, I'm told. Some of my relatives still live in trailer parks, and some could have easily been extras or actors in this film. It actually makes me think of my own childhood in a very bittersweet, sentimental way.

If this movie repulses you, well, that's only one of it's objectives. If you can see past the horror, and just simply realize that the director is presenting real people in their real environment, devoid of judgment, you are making progress. A huge chunk of America, and indeed most of the Third World, lives just like this. It's just how it is...not evil or to be pitied or condescended to...it's just how life is for a lot of disposable, historically abused White Trash people in our rotting, decaying Republic. And "Gummo" succeeds in that it is almost a travelogue of these

environs, one that is as beautiful as it is horrifying, and full of metaphors about our ugly and beautiful human condition.

The quiet final scene, with the Down's Syndrome afflicted woman singing to

Jesus quite sincerely before "lights out", just as blissful as the only the truly ignorant can be, reminds me a lot of the last photographic work of Diane Arbus, and that is no small compliment. It serves as a counterpoint to the bombastic death metal soundtrack that weaves in and out of the depraved, amoral lives of the metalhead glue-huffing teenagers in the film like a nursery rhyme.

My favorite scene, personally, is where the teenage couple is clumsily

attempting to make out in a totally ruined old shell of a car, in front of a burning mound of what appears to be some creosote-soaked scrap lumber and blown

out tires, as flames and carcinogenic smoke roar up into the night sky. The main male character feels a big ol' cancerous lump on his playmate's breast, and the clumsy groping stops for a minute as the two try to contemplate their hopeless, toxic lives in a dying world.

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34 out of 44 people found the following comment useful :-
Startling, 23 March 2005

Author: howie73

Set in Xenia, Ohio, Gummo feels like a deliberate riposte to Hollywood by its creator, Harmony Korine, whose penchant for subversion was already evident in his screen writing debut for Larry Clark's Kids (1995). Eschewing linear narrative, Korine explores, through the use of vignettes and bizarre episodes, the cat-killing escapades of its two protagonists and weaves this quest around a set of unrelated but bizarre events taking place in Xenia. There is no sense of a story, only a mood, and that mood fluctuates wildly from revulsion to surprise. By giving voice to those marginalized from society, Korine paints a startling portrait of landlocked America, one at odds with the Hollywood cliché of its inhabitants. There are many unforgettable scenes and yet it's not an enjoyable film, but it challenges, provokes and pushes the margins - and that in itself is worthy.

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15 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Pretty convincing, 23 April 2006

Author: pentagore from United States

I must say I was pretty shocked when I first saw this film. I grew up in various small towns in Oklahoma and have encountered people very similar to those portrayed in the movie. It was like going back in time and seeing all those twisted characters all over again. So yes, there are indeed people just like this, if not worse. I had to convince myself several times that I was NOT watching a documentary! I found that the use of raw black metal music added to the grim feel of the movie, particularly when the two kids are whipping the dead cat hanging from the tree. Hey, if you've never seen bored Southern youth, then don't think this stuff doesn't happen. I only wish it didn't.

Overall, I guess you'd have to actually be a witness to those surroundings to actually get it, or to know people like that. I am unsure of what statement the movie is trying to make because the absurdity of the characters' lifestyles really overshadows whatever point Harvey was trying make here. Much like 'Salo: 120 Days of Sodom', I would only recommend this to film buffs.

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18 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
Give the swine what they bellow for, 1 June 2005

Author: eddie-177 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

If you've never lived in a small midwestern town (predominately white, predominately poor) then I suppose that the immediate power of this film would be lost on you, though it's really not that hard to translate the myriad of sick and twisted characters in Gummo to whatever community you live in. I have been a poor white person my entire life and although I've never come across a retarded girl being pimped out by her brother or a pair of kids killing cats to sell to a Chinese joint for meat, I have cut through the back yards and sat beneath the windows of the buildings where these kinds of things may very well have happened. They most likely didn't, of course. But they just might have...

Gummo is a look at things that just might be. What Might Be going on down the street. What horrible secrets Might your neighbors Be hiding? We all play this game; we think of the worst things that people might do, and we hope, in a sick way, that they might actually be doing them.

"Old Man Johnson, with the hook for the hand? You know he got that hook reaching into the woman's bathroom in the school, some girl took a knife and just cut it off." "The guy across the street, and I heard this from Judy who is friends with his ex-wife, she says that he used to dress up like a clown and give out candy, but one day he was caught with this little kid, doing stuff. What you mean, what kind of stuff. Dirty stuff, you know." Sometimes these displays are ridiculous and funny, sometimes they're disgusting, and sometimes they're truly horrible, but they are always enthralling. Gummo is a series of these displays.

No, there isn't a cohesive plot and I know that more than a few simple film goers will be genuinely confused and possibly even angered by this point (I might suggest that these people go watch some Buñuel, or at least try not to have such a narrow conception of film). Gummo really acts more like a portrait than a traditional film, playing on the viewer's emotions through characters instead of plot.

There are no social or political implications to Gummo, which may lead to the mistaken but commonly-held belief that this is somehow an exploitation film. This is not a story of a town in need of a savior that will not come or even of problems that need to be solved. The lack of narrative ensures a lack of message: this is a neither a criticism nor a sympathetic portrait. It's a raw feed, without morals, and it's shot and acted so realistically that it might seem as if Korine were shoot a faux-documentary. The characters are just exaggerations of people that you may have come across, characters that you've already created--the ADD boy who plays tennis and has the world's coolest mullet, the young girls who put electric tape on their nipples to make them perkier, the creepy little glue-sniffing boys who murder housecats and pay to sleep with a retarded girl. These aren't real people and Korine doesn't want you to think that they are. They are merely what we've always thought our neighbors capable of and we've always, in a sick way, almost wanted to believe. Why else would urban legends stick around so long? Why else is most disgusting gossip usually the most interesting? Gummo gives us all what we want, unflinchingly, and doesn't ask to be thanked.

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20 out of 27 people found the following comment useful :-
She's Been Dead a Long Time, 10 May 2002
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Spoilers herein.

`Man with the Movie Camera' meets `La Notte' meets `Harvey' through `Donnie Darko' -- and is as effective as any of them. And as tuned to video as other masters are to film. I was really impressed, and that's saying a lot.

Other comments can concern themselves with the modern elements of this matterwise, the angst of presenting an environment permeated with angst. What interests me is that actual filmmaking technique. It strikes me as very effective, from the nearly subliminal bell (copied from PT Andersen) to the varying video techniques to the snappy incongruously happy editing. Video qualities went beyond their basic quality of denoting documentary. (Compare this to `Drop Dead Gorgeous.'.) The video quality here establishes a rhythm you don't get with flat film.

Did they know that cats are a longstanding symbol of artistic creativity? Did they know that Xenia (Athena) is the goddess of wisdom? That Greeks considered tornadoes the penis of God? That the offspring are demented kids intent on destroying their own worlds?

This is strong work, lyrically hopeless. I'll check out `Kids.' I think this guy is worth following.

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19 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
Disgusting, Yet Oddly Riveting, 19 March 2005
Author: Daniel Little (balddanny@hotmail.com) from Columbus, Ohio

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"Gummo" has to be one of the most wretched, repulsive movies I've ever seen. Worse, there is very little plot. Other than two boys that go around a dysfunctional neighborhood and perform gruesome and violent acts for pleasure, I could neither figure out nor care what this movie was about. It was very gruesomely fascinating, though. Seeing eccentric, dirty people fill the screen was oddly riveting, even if I was nauseated trying to sit through this. The ending was complete nonsense-it shows two women sitting on a bed while one sings "Jesus Loves Me" off-key. The most disquieting thing about "Gummo" is the reality that neighborhoods and people like this do exist and will always exist. If I never see this movie again, it will be too soon.

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25 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
Original, but in a familiar sort of way, 20 June 1999
Author: John N. (jgn@fw.chadbourn.com)

Well...

I spent a small part of my childhood not too far away from Xenia, Ohio and a large part of it in the South. I can't say I ever found myself in such a screwed up place as this one, but I know one thing -- if I did I would certainly want to go back and document it! Then I'd be perfectly happy if another tornado came by and leveled the whole place.

Watching this movie was like looking at those years through some really distorted mirror and finding recognizeable nuances of personality in it. And I can't say much of that was appealing. Neither was this movie, which is not to say the characters weren't compelling, because some of them certainly were. Give me an impenetrable glass bubble and a camera and I'll take my place in this grotesque circus. I like to watch, but I don't want to get dirty. Everyone in this movie was dirty...

That spaghetti scene and "I want a moustache dammit!" were worth the price of admission. I do have one suggestion, however -- it either should have been more contemporary or more distant. At first it wasn't clear if the action was taking place shortly after the tornado or long after it. But when the albino woman mentioned Pamela Anderson, that nailed down a time period for me. It would have been more effective as a period piece (sometime in the 70s) where the audience looks back on a really messed up town; or it could have been filled with more contemporary references which places a really messed up town not too far away from where you and I live.

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