Attention Diablo Cody: you are not the first oddly monikered young screenwriter whose first script became an indie sensation. Way back in the 20th century, there was a fella name o’ Harmony Korine, no more than a teenager when his screenplay Kids became photographer Larry Clark’s 1995 directorial debut. An instant controversy, the documentary-style look at the sexually-charged, drug-fueled life of a group of New York teens was slapped with an NC-17 rating that prevented its distribution by Miramax (then as now owned by Disney). The Weinstein brothers released Kids on their own to a mixed reception; some critics swooned, others proclaimed it exploitative sleaze.
Still, Korine made enough of a name for himself to secure his own directorial debut two years later with Gummo. A fragmented, impressionistic ode to white trash, the film was if anything even more divisive than Kids. Janet Maslin of the New York Times opened her review with the line “October is early, but not too early to acknowledge Harmony Korine's Gummo as the worst film of the year.” But while sophisticated metropolitan tastemakers were busy pointing out how condescending and hateful Korine was toward his “nonprofessional actors, often freakish individuals” (jeez, no condescension there, Janet!), Gummo was well on its way to becoming the cult favorite of the trailer park. And why not? Among other things, it featured the greatest battle of man versus chair ever captured on film:
Korine followed Gummo with his Dogme 95 entry, Julien Donkey-Boy (1999), an uneven tale of a schizophrenic that garnered the now-predictable mixed reception ( I offered qualified praise: “Shot on digital video, with blown-out colors and punishing graininess, Julien Donkey-Boy has the look and feel of something unearthed in an archeological dig - a primitive piece of folk art.” Admittedly, I haven’t revisited it since.) That was nearly a decade ago, so where has Korine been?
For a while, there was talk of a disturbing movie in the Jackass vein, wherein Korine would antagonize random people on the street into fighting him and document the resulting damage done to him. In 2002, Clark directed Korine’s script for Ken Park, but that had been written years earlier. There were whispers of heroin addiction and, perhaps even more disturbing, a friendship with doofus magician David Blaine that resulted in the British television special Above the Below. But there were no new Harmony Korine movies...until now.
Mister Lonely, which will have its U.S. premiere at South by Southwest in March, is exactly what you’d expect: a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton), who brings him to a commune full of faux celebrities and historical figures. Having shown at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, the film breaks no new ground as far as its critical reception: it’s as divisive as ever, sometimes within the same review. The UK Telegraph describes it as “by turns idiotic, over-extended, childish and half-baked.” Then, in the very next sentence: “But when it’s not those things, and sometimes even when it is, the results are brilliantly bold, moving and tenderly, rhapsodically beautiful.” Sounds like a Harmony Korine movie alright.
