FILM REVIEW - Julien Donkey-Boy...

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Where do I begin? This is a gut-wrenchingly disturbing and shocking film that is also disorientating and emotionally devastating in parts. It is from Harmony Korine, the director who brought us Gummo; one of my favourite films and what I consider to be a startling evocation of a time, a place and a people. I thought that film was very experimental; certainly in terms of narrative and style. I had another thing coming. This film is very different in style but definitely far more experimental. But when does experimentation become distracting?

Julien Donkey-Boy is a portrayal of a young schizophrenic named Julien and his strange and highly dysfunctional family; the abusive father (Werner Herzog; frightening and funny), who likes to drink medicine out of a shoe while wearing a gas-mask, the tender, caring sister (Chloe Sevigny; excellent as usual) who is also pregnant, the younger brother, who is an aspiring wrestler and the only normal one in the family, and the senile dog-loving grandmother. All of these people are portrayed affectionately, as if Korine knew these people in some past life. Unlike Gummo, this film has a somewhat singular storyline with few tangents (under the dogme95 regulations). The behaviour of these people is at times funny, at others frightening. At the beginning of the film, Julien, alone and lost in the woods, encounters a young boy playing with turtles. He behaves ecstatically at this encounter, but as the child's tone changes to one of disdain Julien appears to strike him down and choke him to death. I say "appears" because things are very hard to make out in this film. The shaky-video-style gives it a highly impressionistic feel. But although the imagery may seem vague, it works, and lingers in the mind. The facial expressions of Julien are both frightening and saddening, as he wanders his street in confusion and fear. Ewen Bremner gives a convincing performance. The interaction of this family gives the film a real dramatic edge, and as it moves on, a plot becomes apparent; though never certain. Early on it is hinted that the baby Julien's sister is carrying may be his, and that they may have an incestuous relationship with each other. Interestingly, they have phone conversations with each other in the same house, in which she pretends to be his dead mother calling him from afar. Scenes like this are fascinating and emotive; the way these people communicate with each other in the dysfunctional realm of their senses...
As I've said before, Korine's direction is highly experimental; perhaps self-consciously so. There are scenes filled with odd camera movement that works on a shock-and-confusion level, but is also somewhat distracting; for instance in one scene Herzog is getting a haircut from Sevigny, and the camera darts around his face and all over-the-place as he tells a story. There are many scenes like this, full of sharp and shaky camera movements and jumpcuts, and the grainy-video aesthetic doesn't help. There is one brilliant scene in a church congregation as a priest chants and sings. Julien gazes as if the priest were addressing only him. The camera whizzes around the rest of the congregation as if they were cheering for him somehow. He stands up and claps; deluded. Is this the worldview of a schizophrenic? Is it because the film is told from Julien's eyes? Perhaps. But I think the film also adopts other perspectives; those of the sister and father. It is sometimes hard to believe that the father isn't mentally ill from his behaviour. And his sister, while rational and gentle for the most part, also behaves in strange ways. And there are also of course distorted images of a girl figure-skating that permeate many scenes. And near the climax is a heart-and-gut-wrenching scene in which his sister falls after gleefully skating round a rink. She is rushed to the hospital where the baby is pronounced dead, but Julien escapes with the foetus and takes it home...


This is not an easy film to digest. Unlike Gummo, it is cold and wintry; the cinematography very grey and gritty, and there is a constant sense of isolation. Well however shocking I find it to be, and however distracting, I believe it to probably be the closest cinema has come to capturing the worldview of a schizophrenic. Demented, odd, icy, but also tender, authentic, personal, and highly effective; surefire proof of the creative force that is Harmony Korine...