Gummo UK FORMAT

If your looking for this film in uk format , this is the one to go for, have been looking for a copy of this film ever since I rented it on a whim in VHS format approx 15 years ago. Was a bit anxious when the film arrived and the wrapping was French but just choose English for the language option and its fine . Obviously the film remains the same as the one I saw 15 yrs ago , but somehow has lost some of the shock that I felt on watching the first time. Is that a reflection of the times we live in ? It probably is........Ok its a bit pricey but I haven't seen it anywhere else in UK format so, buy , enjoy, accept, have faith that we can reflect the inevitability that this is our future. Good Luck, and where can you buy those rabbit ears?

This is an extraordinary film that lives on in your mind afterwards - whether it is "Bunny Boy" piddling on the highway from a bridge to the strange song that opens the film, the imp like boy who dominates the film and looks like he was originally a gargoyle on Notre Dame, the hunting of cats and the strange white trash that inhabit the film, this is pure American Gothic filmed with verve by Harmony Korine. This is not so much the American Dream gone wrong as the American Dream on steroids and rapidly going round the bend. I loved it. Don't try to understand it. Just sit back and let it wash over you.

if you like odd films which portray a distopian life without fantasy, this will be for you.

This DVD is a European Import which is why the cover and menus are in French. But the film still plays in English. Just select 'langues', change the audio to 'Version originale', and remove the subtitles by selecting Sous-titres -> Sans. Then select 'lecture' (playback) and voila, the DVD will play in English without subtitles.The picture and sound quality are very good, but the film runs at 85 mins, I thought the original film was 89 minutes, so this may be a cut-down version.Now for the content. I have to say, this is probably one of the strangest films I have ever seen. There is no plot at all, just a series of scenes, some of which are connected. The film is supposed to depict "the aftermath of a tornado-stricken Ohio town" with "deserted landscapes" but I was not always convinced by this. Scenes with a busy highway and packed shopping-mall car-park reveal life going on as normal, just outside the filthy houses and gardens where most of the film takes place. The depressing characters and their odd (sometimes revolting) behaviour is more likely the product of an underclass, the result of years of economic deprivation. They spend their days drinking, fighting, killing cats, talking about killing cats and just acting generally weird. In fact the weirder the premise of the scene, the more successful it is.The weaker scenes are those where the scripted dialogue is too much for the unprofessional actors and the scene comes off as amateurish. These are the exception though. Mostly, the scenes feel real, and although the majority of the film is scripted the dialogue often feels improvised, which is a success of sorts.The film is often funny too. A typical scene involves a bunch of drunks in a kitchen all arm-wrestling each other and finishes with a guy wrestling a chair. Another scene shows a young teenager eating his spaghetti and milk dinner in a bath of filthy water while having his hair washed by his mother. The scene is amusing, disgusting and quite touching at the same time. In fact the film as a whole treads a fine line between humour and disgust and does it well. Some scenes however can get a little tedious, such as one where a girl shaves her eyebrows off.Intermingled with this strangeness are random, meaningless shots of stuff I can't even begin to explain. I guess the fascination of this film comes from never knowing what is coming next. Even the weaker scenes usually give way to something oddly watchable. I was disappointed when the film finished so it must have something going for it. A hypnotic quality, like an accident you can't tear your eyes away from. For that reason I give it a generous 3 and a half stars.

a really great movie and it works great, only annoying thing is that the cover and menu is french

the last time i saw this film, was on channel 5, way back in 2002, and HMV told me that i could not get it on DVD. and bbfc, told me that icould not get it on DVD.

Want something different watch thisGo in not knowing anything about itLove it or hate it filmDive in to the mind of young harmony korine

this is a superb film. the sort to watch again straight away after finishing. it's constantly fascinating- new emotions will wash over your body ever minute, and there is a whole gammit of emotions covered here (not all positive by a long shot). some will hate this- no traditional story, it is very experimental/unconventional. but it is very entertaining not some boring up its own behind arty film. essential!

Parfait

Gran película. La versión esperpéntica de la realidad. Cruel e irónica. Una gran obra de un gran director. Plas plas

There have been many discussions about Gummo. The biggest point of these debates is the meaning of the film. Some brush it off as a collage of random imagery, sounds, scenes and character interactions. Others have miscategorized it as some type of mockumentary of Midwest/Southern lower income culture. However, the artistic factor of this movie reminds me of a Salvador Dali painting, where one can get lost in the details and miss the very explicit message being relayed. So what message or thesis is this film trying to deliver?Simply, Gummo is about loss of control, how we react to this loss, and various mechanisms we use to cope with the loss or regain a sense of control. In a society in which all things are relative to man, elements are pretty much controllable. However, when an event happens that takes control and certainty away, many find themselves in disarray and shock. In this movie, Harmony explores how different characters are going to react to the loss of control and certainty. Some will survive, some will capitalize, some have seen it before, some will fantasize, some will be in denial, some will try to regain control, some with find something or someone else to control and some will mourn and reminisce.First is the tornado. The tornado is an event, at the macro level, that takes control away from everyone. So in essence, everyone starts at ground zero. Now if the tornado represents the element that takes control away, then the bunny boy represents the "general response" to it as well as a symbol of false hope. The biggest clue of this theme is the scene where bunny boy is filmed on the overpass. The overpass/storm represents the controlling elements and bunny boy is the one that is being controlled and goes through the various stages of being incarcerated. Anyone who has taken a psychology or field biology class can recognize the behavior bunny boy exhibits, as if he was trapped. Harmony cleverly attaches the song, 'My little rooster' by Almeda Riddle to sonically wrap the scene as a element of reminiscing, remembering something that is familiar back to a time of "normalcy" where the norm was having control of your environment and your situation. Bunny boy is injected at various points through out the film when these reactions/responses take place.The first scene of Tummler is when he is drowning a cat. It is very significant because the cat is killed in such a way that it minimizes physical trauma for (as we learn later) higher marketability of Tummler's "product".The scene then cuts to Tummler making out with a girl that has a lump in her breast, which might be cancer. Again, like the tornado, the possible cancerous tumor is a symbol of something that is taking control away from us.The scene with Dot and her sister/friend(s) illustrates their response to having control taken away from them by expressing their sexuality. Harmony brilliantly uses music to shade this scene of gaining back control with something that reminds us of youth and the eventual uncertainty of adulthood, where you have exceeded your past, but you are not yet at your future. This theme is enhanced with them bouncing on the beds and the contrast of age with Buddy Holly's song, "Everyday".The skinheads scene illustrates frustration disguised as play. We think they are just horsing around but there is real frustration/anger in those punches. At this point of the film, I feel empathy for them because they are at an ambiguous point of progress if there is any in their eyes. The only metric they have to work with is pain and its magnitude.We now learn Tummler's and Solomon's reason and response to the tornado is survival (killing and selling cats) and denial (sniffing glue). So far this response has worked well but they have a potential new source of control being taken away and that source is their new competitor, Jarrod Wigley.The next scene is a classical discussion on race, when it is easy to blame another race for one's sorrows, when the real culprit is being unprepared for life's events.The junkyard scene re-illustrates the response of frustration, anger and ignorance. Bunny boy plays along with the cowboy kids and ends up playing dead. What bunny boy does is give the cowboy kids a false and temporary sense of control. Thus, the situation is mitigated (for now) and really bunny boy is the one that has control because he controls the boys' expectations and delivers a false result. One can extrapolate this scene to the life-cycle of a politician.The scene with Ellen and Eddie represents the response of moving on as usual and moving forward, but Eddie does not have full control due to ADD. This scene is the response of quantifying and formalizing the unknown, which takes away control. We now have a face for this particular source and regain some control and certainty of the situation.The scene with Harmony is about grieving and the sense of loss as a response/reaction. This scene particular takes me back to the film "Easy Rider" where Peter Fonda's character is at a cemetery, crying in lap of a female statue. According to Dennis Hopper, this scene was about grieving for lost liberties and the statue represented "Lady Liberty" and Fonda was distressed about those losses.Solomon and Tummler's tries to maintain survivability by confronting Jarrod Wigley, their main competitor only to realize that Jarrod is killing cats so he and his grandmother can survive (this escalates through out the film). We also learn that Jarrod, like Dot, tries to regain control via his sexuality.This transitions to Cassidey being pimped out by Cole where he capitalizes on other people's misfortunes and insecurities.As the film progresses, Solomon and Tummler are killing cats more harshly as the value of this behavior become less about economic trade and more of a psychological outlet. Harmony drops more hints with talks of suicide, depression, scape-goating others, etc.The scene with Solomon and his mom compares and contrasts with the reaction of reminiscing of a better time to the reaction of surviving and utilizing what is left over from the destruction (Solomon using silverware for weights). Again, music is strategically used. Madonna's "Like a Prayer" compliments this scene very subtlety.In he next scene, Tummler goes from survival mode to reminiscing with his dad and then takes a reprieve by having fun with friends and family only to witness that the other people's fun turns back to frustration, similar to the scene with the skinheads. For me, this is a very emotional pull because everyone is trying to make the best of a bad situation, but the situation is just too strong that it over takes the good.The movie continues on with various scenes that retouches a lot of these subjects and leads us to a pivotal scene. We are now at the part where Dot and her sisters are looking for their cat, Foot Foot. They are tricked getting into some middle-aged man's car, who claims that he knows where their cat is. He establishes his credentials as an authority figure and then tries to molest the girls. The girls react in survival mode and fend off the pedophile. However, they are angry because the one thing they have control of, their sexuality, was almost taken away. So once again, the characters try to recoup some control only to lose it to something bigger than themselves.We revisit the theme of capitalizing on people in a time of distress with the twins and the candy bar.Now at the end, the girls make out with bunny boy (false hope) to regain a sense of control of their sexuality. This illustrates any given person in such dire straights, will unconditionally latch on to anything that gives them a sense of hope. They embrace it and make it an intimate part of their lives just to get back to a sense of certainty and control. Solomon and Tummler kill Foot Foot, the cat, not for business, but for the sake of asserting there sense of control and the satisfaction that comes with it. The human has now become the tornado and the cat has become the person. Thus, bunny boy appears holding the dead Foot Foot as a symbolic juxtaposition that brings up a question that has already been answered, "Is asserting unnecessary control the same as accepting false hope?" Unfortunately, the answer is, "yes".The End Pink Floyd - The Wall 25th Anniversary (Deluxe Edition) The Maxx: The Complete Series Happiness Jacob's Ladder Voices In the Tunnels: IN Search of the Mole People Unforgotten: Twenty-Five Years After Willowbrook The Sleep Room The Elephant Man "A Surrealist can create the work of an Abstractionist, but an Abstractionist cannot create the work of a Surrealist." Pink Floyd - The Wall 25th Anniversary (Deluxe Edition)The Maxx: The Complete SeriesHappinessJacob's LadderVoices In the Tunnels: IN Search of the Mole PeopleUnforgotten: Twenty-Five Years After WillowbrookThe Sleep RoomThe Elephant Man

I saw Gummo a week ago and I can't get its images out of my mind. Every scene was startling, funny, and/or disturbing in one way or another. As I see it, all of the the people in this town in Ohio were victims of a tornado; it ripped through their lives and left them full of anger but with nothing to pin that anger on. And so they vent by shooting at cats--and then whipping the corpses--or by wrestling a chair (that bizarre scene on its own is worth the price of the movie), or through child abuse, or shooting a kid with a cap gun, among other things. I think director Korrine is ultimately sympathetic with his characters because he shows them as pathetic and vulnerable (eg, kids shivering in the rain). The moments which are shocking are balanced by moments which are sublime and poetic. I would recommend it highly to anyone who appreciates the off-beat.

Ce film américain de 1997 est une grande bizarrerie avec des ados dans une ambiance à l’esprit grunge. Vraiment cultissime!