Ken Park (2002)

Considering I grew up in Visalia, and spent much of my youth at the skate park featured at the beginning of the film, I can attest there is plenty of realism in this film. Our society is deeply troubled, and maybe YOU don't see things like this every day, but I certainly have. In fact, just this week one of the locals that starred in this film came to my friend's house in the middle of the night spun out of his gourd on meth. It would have fit perfectly as a scene in this film.

To those who argue detractors don't "get it", I promise you I do. My problem is for those who won't. I get it because I've lived in this town and seen its dirty side, which I'm positive can be seen in many other cities in this country. To someone who has led a sheltered and fortunate life, watching this movie will not help them to understand anything. To someone like me who hasn't led a sheltered and fortunate life, well there isn't much difference, this film is pure shock value with absolutely no plot.

It's possible to make a movie as shocking and graphic as this and still provide some sort of coherence and plot, but that's not Larry Clark's style. He simply confronts you with tragic and disturbing situations, with little empathy, understanding, or context. You're left just feeling disgusting.

Fmovies: This is a film about relationships. My congratulations to the people responsible for making this film because I've never seen anything remotely like it. Not even "Kids". Shocking, gripping, honest, mature, in-your-face. "Ken Park" is the first film made that takes us into the world of American families to show us what really goes on. Life is not all sweet and charming even though we might wish it to be. Movies don't have to be sappy and happy. There don't have to be car chases and killings, cops and good-guys and bad-guys. To those viewers raised on soap operas and "Friends", turn away because you won't find this film funny.

A shocker for sure...banned in most countries tells you a lot about it. When I see that it makes me WANT to see it. The sex is totally credible. You don't have actors grabbing for sheets or towels to cover up their bodies--hey just like real life!! The scenes are tense, the technical side perfect. You are going to be exposed to some troubled people and they're not only kids. Adults are having a hell of a time getting through life too. Some want a lot more than the 2 point 3 kids and a white picket-fence house in the 'burbs. They long for illicit sex. But look for more, you'll find it in this film. These are characters disturbed by life and not able to function, exactly like your friends and co-workers and neighbors. Lots of people stumble through life and don't have a clue how to behave, how to be loving or tender. Relationships with some people are constant conflicts which they don't even understand themselves. This film shows us some. The sad part is most people don't even realize how screwed up their lives are.

I'm not going to review the plot. You just have to see it yourself and form your own views. Because films have to be seen---that's the art form. I'd also like to congratulate and thank everyone involved in this production for having the courage to give us something worthwhile. In the 1930's there was a film movement called surrealism which was designed to shock people. It did, but today we don't get much shock value out of those old films. "Ken Park" isn't surreal, but it really does shock...maybe it's "hyper-realism". So real you feel totally nervous, never knowing what you are going to see next. All the green-screen and digital video effects dished out by Hollywood can't compare to the plain, good, unselfconscious acting and direction. Every character gets my "Oscar" and the direction and camera-work are so incredible they defy description. Whoever wrote the script knows how to write. Kids aren't as verbal as a lot of movies make them out to be. That lack of dialogue is what always distinguishes a great film for me. I'm not a big fan of voice- over to make plot points, but this film is so outstanding in so many ways the short bits of narration do not diminish it. Great work all around but if you grew up on "Disney" forget it.

ken park or krap nek as they say is basically four episodes with each episode dealing with an individual's family situation or lack thereof. These episodes are inter-cut within each other.

Though Larry's Clark's movies deal with very explicit, or "realistic" subject matter his presentation is overwrought. Characters are more caricatures than 'real' people. The zealot father, the aging housewife, the weird kid, the father with unrequited love. The scenes with these characters were hard for me to take in. The actions and reactions they take seemed so hackneyed to me. Could it be that Larry Clark is developing a "larry clarkness"? a style? As one who is purported to be a breaker of styles and conventions this movie was shot pretty conventionally with lots of sex. I wasn't too impressed with this effort. Some shots, as Larry Clark says, are there for realistic purposes but I just found it to be sensationalistic and unnecessary.

The cinematography was great that is probably due to the Ed Lachman. The blue and red tinge really added to their respective scenes. Probably use of tungsten for outdoors and daylight inside.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I could swear Larry Clark is moving from realism to symbolism. In one scene he has the family gather together on the front steps. Your good Ole' American suburban family, full of deceit and infidelity but putting up a great face none the less. It seemed like a tableau.

Ken Park fmovies. I have no problems with the explicit content in the film, go ahead and show whatever you like, just do it for a reason other than to push the boundries. There's nothing less interesting than watching a movie that is based on the premise of Let's Make People Accept Something New. That's lame. It's cheap. The movie is not interesting in the least. It never goes anywhere. It seems as though Larry Clark's ideas for characters were just him thinking he wanted to push the limits of sex on film, and so that's what the characters are doing. They are in no way representative of a real person as this film tries to convince us. This film would be boundry pushing if it was able to contextualize the behaviour and not just put it on a screen. At the film festival Clark answered a question about the inclusion of the character of Ken Park, who seemed to exist for no real reason other than to begin the film with a suicide. Clark responded by saying that he wanted to deal with teenage suicide in the movie, which is fine, but just showing someone shoot themselves in the head is not dealing with teenage suicide. It just exploits violence. There doesn't seem to be any thought, beyond the voyeuristic tendancies of the film makers, in this movie at all.

Reading the local (Belgian) reviews for this movie, you'd seriously think we're moving back in time. Critics seem to be bending over backwards in their defense of sexually explicit imagery (okay, there's a little bit of what could be considered hardcore footage here, but nothing on the level of, say, BAISE-MOI for instance), once again trying to establish the thin line between art and pornography, forgetting (conveniently, perhaps ?) to really focus on the film instead. Could it be that Harmony Korine's razor sharp screenplay, largely based on the personal experiences of some of director Larry Clark's friends and models, actually hit too close to home for a lot of people to admit ?

Though the sleepy suburb in this movie might qualify as quintessential Americana by definition of many, I can assure you that the stuff that happens over there takes place all over the world. A lot of things both the adolescents and their parents go through were instantly recognizable to me personally, and I'm a 35 (going on 36) year old employee from that minuscule ant heap of a country called Belgium. How's that for universal appeal ?

Too many adult viewers would still seem to prefer to deny the very possibility that their teen-aged children harbor strong sexual desires, let alone the likely consequence that they've already acted upon them ! It may strike some as slightly unsavory that now 59 year old Larry Clark addresses such issues (especially given the level of unflinching honesty and carnal frankness demonstrated here), as he did in both KIDS and BULLY previously, but nearly no one else apparently dares to come anywhere near this topic as of yet. Much more than simply courting controversy, Clark (and co-helmer Lachman) have crafted a beautiful, funny, touching, heartbreaking and absolutely haunting (those final frames with the titular Ken Park will be etched in my mind for life) work of, yes, art.

A lot of older viewers have remarked that the film is somehow unfairly slanted in favor of the young characters (compelling actors the lot of them), rendering the adults as grotesque caricatures. As far as I'm concerned, only very inattentive viewers could ever come up with that assessment. Tate's grandparents may initially come across as whiny and pathetic yet there's a sweet little scene later on that shows their genuine affection for one another. It is both telling and sad that their grisly fate apparently elicits far less shocks from its audiences than those scant minutes of groin action. A world gone mad, indeed.

Claude's macho dad is another case in point. His ultimate transgression towards his son manages to be both disturbing and weirdly touching. Each adult character (let's not forget Claude's mom, engagingly portrayed by the underrated Amanda Plummer) gets at least one scene where the admittedly stereotypical surface is scratched away and subtleties like a single wounded glance can turn the whole story on its head. I sincerely love this movie precisely for doing just that.

In a city in California, the skateboarders Shawn (James Bullard), Claude (Stephen Jasso) and Tate (James Ransone) and Peeches (Tiffany Limos) are friends of the suicidal teenager Ken Park (Adam Chubbuck). Shawn has intercourse with his girlfriend and her mother. Claude has an abusive, violent and alcoholic father and a neglectful and passive pregnant mother. Tate is addicted in masturbation and hates his grandparents that raise him due to the lack of privacy in his own room. Peeches practices kinky sex and has a fanatical religious father that misses his wife.

"Ken Park" is a sad story of dysfunctional families and their teenagers. Most of the characters have sick and abnormal behaviors, but fortunately it is just a sample in the universe of director Larry Clark, who seems to like this theme, and does not correspond to the majority of the society. This uncomfortable movie is indicated for very specific audiences. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Ken Park"