Ken Park (2003)

it is the basic sin and virtue of this experiment who seems have as purpose only to use the sex and violence as challenges for the sensitivity of the public. this desire transforms the story in a convention or sketch about family, teenagers, needs, freedom, chaos. and this is it. sure, nothing surprising. but "Ken Park" has not a precise direction. it could be reduced as a show in which the voyeurism is axis. the generous theme - the storm of feelings, desires, self image of teenagers becomes only a pretext. and not the explicit sexual scenes are the problem, not the violence but the absence of meanings. result - a not comfortable film because every expectation of public falls.

If you thought, the movie 1995's Kids was controversial disturbing; this movie is worst. Honestly, when you think about it, the movie by director Larry Clark and written by Harmony Korine isn't presenting anything new, here. It's basically Kids: Part 2. Ken Park is a melodrama-erotic film that are based on Larry Clark's journals and stories. For a film, titled 'Ken Park', the film has little to do about teenager Ken Park (Adam Chubbuck) life, and the reasons that lead him to commit suicide. It more revolves around the teenagers friends of the demise, and how abusive or dysfunctional their lives are. The first friend, Shawn (James Bullard) is the most stable of the four main characters. He's playing a dangerous love-affair with his girlfriend's mother, Rhonda (Maeve Quinlan), throughout the story. Next is Claude (Stephen Jusso) whom getting physical and mentally abuse by his alcoholic father (Wade Williams). Then, there is Peaches (Tiffany Limos) who lives with her extremely religious father, who way too fixates on her. Last is Tate (James Ransone), an unstable and sadistic adolescent living with his grandparents, whom he resents and frequently verbally abuses. The film badly intercuts frequently between the characters, with no overlap of characters or events until the end. The movie makes it look like they're all friends, but we rarely see them interact with each other or Ken Park. It's one of the bigger faults of the film. It felt like four different movies. The movie tries really hard to have stylistic elements to connect these scenes, but it's so badly executed. A tennis metaphor for a man beating up a kid tied to a bed, and that of a kid autoerotic asphyxiation beating off his man part. WTF? The movie doesn't have a resolve or conclusion to any of the problems, these teenagers are going through. After all, the movie end with a threesome orgy as a solution. It's really hard to care about these unlikeable characters. When we empathize in a sad tragedy movie. Our brain are supposed to releases oxytocin, which engages brain circuits that prompt us to care about others. Instead, this movie just made me, hate them more. After all, most of these characters are the cause of their own faults. At less, that's what I think. The movie doesn't bother, giving us much exposition. Honestly, what is the point of watching this movie? I watch it, because I thought, maybe it would be as good as portraying real life troubles like the movie 'Kids' with something new. Instead, I got a movie that just recycle the same old plot-line crap behavior towards sex as the last movie. The new things that they try to add are just too outrageous. Honestly, how many children have to deal with incestuous wedding rituals or wanting to kill your parents after a scrabble game? Why couldn't the movie, dealt with the struggles of teen depressing and have somewhat a positive message? After all, it felt like the movie was trying to do that, but it went horrible wrong. The movie went on without any sense of message. If it did, it kinda got lost in the mess. The entire movie can be viewed as an argument for abortion, as everyone is a complete jerks, but come on. Abortion wouldn't stop people from being idiots. I think the writers and director overkill the film by having so many unlikeable situations that it turn off most of the movie theater audience, from picking up and watching the film. What is left are, just the people that are mentally disturbed, watching loathsome characters. Indeed, the film felt like dark erotic porno. I felt like I had to take a shower, after watching this crap. No wonder, why this movie is NC-17. If you want to get your kicks off, there is plenty of full frontal nude scenes of realistic cunnilingus and other sexual positions with hardcore shots of ejaculations. I think most people know this movie just due to the film's most-famous scene with Maeve Quinlan. I doubt, they know the movie is really about. Fanservice or not, there are better movies to jack off; to. Unless, you find middle aged men urinating, sexy. The movie was banned in a few countries. One of the biggest banned came from Australia. The film has not been released in the United States since its initial showing in 2002. Director Larry Clark says that this is because of the producer's failure to get copyright releases for the music. Overall: The movie is indeed going for shock value, but the delivery of it, made the film, more like schlock value. It's a horrible film.

a town.few families. teenagers. large slices of sex. mixture between pornography and a kind of cry. or, only, a Rubick cube. it is, in same time, disgusting and cruel.bitter and chaotic. no moral, no message. at first sigh. young bodies and ambiguous story. but it is only a poor picture. because it is only a picture of society. frustrations, fear, lost of life sense, schizoid universe, darkness of soul and fake refugees, result - a honest film. too honest because it may be ironic drawing of every day facts, warning or only cold mirror. a difficult film for its bitter skin. because eroticism, at all levels, with each nuances is only a form to sensibles. or a trap. only the viewer has right answer. for himself.

Explaining "Ken Park" in simple words: A story about several a group of Californian skateboarder's friends, their lives and relationships with and without their parents. Watching the film is not that simple, it's a awkward tour-de-force where you have three choices: walk out of the film after some of its controversial moments; watch the whole film and hate it because of its controversial content; or watch it with and like it despite everything you seen here. I don't know how many people heard things about it but I know that many people will not want to see it, or will find a boring and empty film with nothing more to say. But it has something there that compels us to watch it and like it.The story begins when a teen skater boy named Ken Park (Adam Chubbuck) happily killed himself in front of other skaters. Then the movie presents us Ken's friends, Shawn (James Bullard), Peaches (Tiffany Limos), Tate (James Ransone) and Claude (Stephen Jasso) and their complicated and obnoxious lives with their families, or in Shawn's case without them, only with his girlfriend and her mother, being a sexually active boy with both women. Many viewers and reviewers here complained about the story's point, the nudity, the sex, about everything before looking to themselves and to what they watch in the news and asking themselves: Real life is that strange as this film? Yes! That's what made of "Ken Park" one of the best films ever made and one of the most shocking too, because it seemed real, actors were not playing around, they were not only physically nude but they were portraying life as it is to some people, in this case a group of troubled people. And all that comes as a hypocrisy. Hypocrisy because people do strange things, get undressed, their intimate parts appears, they masturbate (perhaps not in that way), sometimes they show to each other, big deal, but there's always someone who'll get offended with that. But heads exploding, death executions, mass killings both in films and in real life doesn't seem to disturb the same viewers that gets easily impressed with films like this. Something must be very wrong with mankind and that's what Larry Clark and Ed Lachman present to us in this film, I don't know if that was the intention but it certainly succeed it. I guess I've seen so many strange and freaky things in movies that this film didn't bothered me that much, in fact, it let me hypnotized, I wanted to see what was going to happen next, everything was surprising, there's no moments of "I had it coming". But I know that a regular viewer who'll watch "Ken Park" will be disturbed, disgusted, shocked, paralyzed and another adjectives, and all I can say is this: if you want to see something new and you think nothing can disturb you then watch it. It's that kind of movie that you like it but you can't suggest to everyone. I must say that "Ken Park" doesn't make too much for a great director like Larry Clark considering his other controversial works such as "Kids" and "Bully" who were less disturbing but they had one thing more that this film didn't have: a social critic that urges changes in societies and in relationships without having that denounce appearance, pointing fingers to the audience; he just shows us the situation and the rest is up to the audience think for itself. His documentary style works here, you almost won't even notice that veteran actors like Amanda Plummer, Richard Riehle and Julio Oscar Mechoso are in the film along with unknown actors. A memorable film, a different and incredible experience, just when you think you know something you must see in a different perspective, and for that and more I loved "Ken Park". 10/10