Gummo, director: Harmony Korine, USA, 1997, 89 mins
The film consists of a number of random scenes, interwoven with fragments of family videos and pictures taken in real time. It’s a quasi-documentary describing what’s left of Xenia, a city in Ohio that used to be normal. There are two teenage boys in this city which is deprived of its future, Solomon and Tummler, his senior. They are riding bikes, listening to metal music and smell glue just to kill time. Everywhere they go they meet weird and terrifying people and their life is as miserable as the place they live in…
Even though there was a usual lighting used in the film it was specially dyed in the post-production process with the use of fluorescent colours so that it could become more aggressive for the viewer to watch. The film was shot in only 20 days.
Julien Donkey-Boy, director: Harmony Korine, USA, 1999, 101 mins
The film tells the story of schizophrenic Julien and his dysfunctional family. Though only the main hero is thought to be mentally handicapped almost all members of his family are behaving strangely. His father sleeps in a gas mask and wants Julien’s younger brother, Chris, to pretend his deceased mother. Chris, on the other hand, is training to become a wrestler with the use of a plastic bin. Only Julian’s sister, Pearl, who is expecting a baby seems to be normal. She’s the only one who stands up for her handicapped brother tormented by their father.
Mister Lonely, director: Harmony Korine, France, Ireland, Great Britain, USA, 2007, 112 mins
A young American (Diego Luna) is lost in Paris. He decides to earn a living as a Michael Jackson look-alike. Once he meets Marilyn Monroe by accident. She takes him to her house where he meets her husband, Charlie Chaplin, her daughter Shirley Temple, and her neighbours: the Pope, the English Queen, James Dean and Madonna.
Also Harmony Korine’s friends, Werner Herzog and Leos Carax, are acting in the film. We will also see, Rachel Korine, known for her performance in “Spring Breakers”, Harmony Korine’s wife.
The Fourth Dimension, director: Harmony Korine, Jan Kwieciński, Aleksey Fedorochenko, USA, Poland, Russia, 2012, 106 mins
A trilogy by three directors from three different parts of the world: Harmony Korine, Aleksey Fedorchenko and Jan Kwiecinski. Each of them makes a 30-minute-film based on a sketch made by Eddy Moretti, VICE Films producer, and takes his character on a journey that changes the way they see the world and themselves. And each filmmaker will offer a different perspective on what the Fourth Dimension is.
Spring Breakers, director: Harmony Korine, USA, 2012, 92 mins
2012 Venice IFF – Special Mention, Nominated for the Main Competition
The film by Korine, an icon of the American independent cinema, is not another teenage action movie but a pastiche on contemporary pop culture that is flooding the young audience with kitsch. The film became a sensation and a dark horse of the festival in Venice in 2012, as well as one of the most important movies of the last year. It tells the story of four young and crazy college students whose main life-motto is to have fun. A number of parties, incredible ideas and untamed fantasy will lead the four pretty girls in bikinis and ski masks to do some dirty work.