A group of shirtless rednecks gets drunk and takes turns arm wrestling before beating the shit out of a kitchen chair.
If you're not intrigued, don't bother with Gummo. All 90 minutes of its runtime are replete with disturbing scenes of nihilism. Filmed in the poorest neighborhoods of Nashville, Gummo is set in the town of Xenia, Ohio in the aftermath of a devastating tornado. The twister is glimpsed in grainy footage at the beginning and end of the movie, and I guess it's meant to give an explanation of why the town's residents seem resigned to lives of killing cats, getting high, and fighting furniture.It's a fucked up movie. There's not much of a story to speak of, the picture and audio are often unclear, and several scenes drag in inanity. But despite its inadequacies, Gummo has several jarring scenes and strangely beautiful passages that make it memorable and contribute to its cult status. The child bathing in filthy water -- a strip of bacon sticks to the wall above the tub -- while eating spaghetti and drinking milk; the albino woman discussing her dream man; the boy with the bunny ears playing an accordion in a vacant bathroom; and the climactic montage set to Roy Orbison's "Crying"…there's poetry in the way these scenes play out.
Written and directed by the enigmatic Harmony Korine, who got his break penning the script for Larry Clark's divisive movie Kids and most recently scripted and directed the surreal Spring Breakers, Gummo sheds light on places and people most moviegoers would deem unfit for the screen. There's a purity in the way Korine simply turned the camera on these people and let them be. Korine has certainly matured as a person and filmmaker over the years, but his work still maintains the same fuck you attitude and unorthodox components that established him as a major talent (the Britney Spears song segment in Spring Breakers is a minor miracle). I can't say whether or not you'll enjoy Gummo, but you won't soon forget it.
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