GUMMO

Tummler and Solomon are two maladjusted kids living in Xenia, a town destroyed by a tornado that caused a high number of victims, leaving the country in a strong state of decay and abandonment. They spend their days killing cats that they then sell to a butcher; they use the money to buy drugs and pay a mentally retarded prostitute. The two interact with the rest of the community, giving life to grotesque and surreal situations. "Gummo" represents the cinematic debut of American director Harmony Korine, just twenty-three years old at the time of the film's production. The movie is entirely constructed through mechanisms that draw heavily from the purest and most classic weird: there is no real plot nor even a narrative construction, but only a series of skits that alternate cyclically, non-consecutively, and rigorously illogically. What we are shown are the vicissitudes of some inhabitants of Xenia, a small disadvantaged city mostly populated by bizarre and sociopathic characters who wallow in the most absolute decadence. Mostly improvised, "Gummo" features the participation of many non-professional actors, picked up off the street: a choice evidently dictated by the director's intentions to create a sort of (fake) documentary, thus adding that indispensable touch of realism that makes the work even more shocking. The long and static shots reinforce the basic idea, deliberately exaggerating the squalid scenes of daily life experienced by the protagonists, dwelling on details apparently insignificant and non-functional to the development of the "plot" but very evocative. The formal heaviness, which involves staging a series of fragmentary situations often left to chance, actually provides a cynical and accurate portrait of the tragic and vulgar social condition in which the characters find themselves. These latter, wrapped in a totally distorted reality and far from any form of civilization, are at the mercy of the lowest primordial instincts, where amorality and the absence of human values reign. The crudeness and visual brutality, in concert with the violent psychological impact, disorient and confuse the viewer, who, at a certain point, driven by an inevitable voyeuristic craving, will renounce the attempt to understand what is happening and will be passively sucked into the vortex of madness and strangeness. The best approach is precisely to let oneself be carried away by the images and emotions, without wanting at all costs to seek in the symbolisms that follow an explanation that simply does not exist. All this meat on the fire, as well as the circular and almost hypnotic repetitiveness of the expressive mechanisms, always very drawn out, risk betraying the director's intention, affecting precisely the realistic aspect of the film that, in the long run, fades away opening the way to a veiled boredom: a flaw altogether acceptable that does not affect the final result. The alienating and sloppy atmosphere is optimally supported by a soundtrack that draws from the extreme metal scene: from Burzum to Brighter Death Now to the Electric Hellfire Club, etc. Among the various tracks, "Like a Prayer" by Madonna and "Crying" by Roy Orbison also stand out, framing two absolutely brilliant and unforgettable sequences. "Gummo" is a hallucinatory journey into excesses, a triumph of nonsense, filth, and drama; a fierce and almost tangible manifestation of the basest and most abject nihilism imposed by the spirit of survival and resignation inherent in human nature. An imaginative, shocking, and disturbing experience that prescinds from any feeling of compassion and empathy. It is impossible to remain indifferent in the face of a work of this kind, certainly difficult to assimilate but capable of imprinting itself in the mind and heart like few others. Absolutely not recommended for viewing by traditionalists and those unaccustomed to the genre in question.