Gummo is, by any standards, an extraordinary film. It was written and directed by 23-year-old Harmony Korine, the screenwriter of the controversial Kids and incidentally, grandson of Bowery Boy Huntz Hall. Named after the forgotten Marx Brother, and set in Ohio, though filmed in Tennessee, the film is virtually plotless but features a gallery of very eccentric characters who mostly display their very dark sides.
likely to offend and shock
The style is a cross between Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, but although this looks likes a documentary, it was entirely scripted and acted – the cast includes Linda Manz, remembered from Days Of Heaven, and Chloe Sevigny, who also served as the film's costume designer. Gummo is likely to offend and shock – cat lovers should be especially warned – and its portrayal of small town nihilism and craziness is disturbingly weird. But it's an accomplished, and wholly original, piece of filmmaking.
