Customer Reviews

Ken Park (Uncut Uncensored Director's Version - Import)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

This is gorilla film making. Ken Park is an incredibly difficult film to watch - in fact it will be impossible to watch for some. Yet, if you allow yourself to be taken into its world, the film paints a disturbingly accurate portrait of a certain culture which is not at all hard to believe.

We see the majority of characters longing, wanting to make a connection with other humans yet feeling alienated. We see, remarkably, the confusion and disinterest of a major portion of an entire generation that views life as hopeless.

The violence, nudity, graphic (and actual) sex never feel like exploitation or pornography, but they will surely keep a majority of Americans from viewing it. Good thing too, or they'd be asking for Larry Clark's head on a silver platter!

If you try to watch this with an open mind, and can leave your inhabitions and judgment at the door, it will be impossible not to be moved - and powerfully so - by this raw and disturbing film.

Folks, this movie is alright, it's not THAT BAD. Probably the best-worded review I've read for "Ken Park" so far is on IMDB.COM. I think someone named "peedur" wrote it or something. Not that I agree with him 100%, but the good that can be taken out of this film is well expressed in his critique.

Look, FCC and MPAA, you don't want me to see something, then for Chrissake don't ban it. That just makes me want to watch it even more. In all honesty, I don't know if this film should be banned here in America. "Kids" and "Bully" made it through okay, even into theaters. When it comes to teens and sexuality, "Ken Park" might be Clark's most truthful presentation of it. Now I know that's gonna send many parents tearing their hair out, and screaming, "What can I do? How can I save them from this?" Well... you can't.

If you don't want to believe that any of what happens in "Ken Park" is real, then you'd better just not watch it altogether. Parents, the heartbreaking truth is that almost all of what happens in here has happened several times and will continue to happen unabated. I've never lived in Visalia, CA, but have spent ample time there. However, I was born and spent the first 19 years of my life in Fresno (the two are remarkably similar and close geographically). Same stagnant lifestyle, same tendency to listen to punk and hip-hop, same heat, etc.

I appreciate Clark's effort to humanize these kids this time; none of them are what I would call "bad." "Kids" made kids look bad. "Ken Park" makes kids look bored, which is what they really are. Don't scream to the heavens, asking why they would think to do such things, that's nonsense. Why do they smoke dope, drink ad nauseum, jerk off and have frivolous sex...? Because there - is - nothing - else - to - do - there. Gotta alleviate the boredom somehow. For instance, when the devout Father scorns his daughter with the Bible... referring to her as a beast and a whore... nope, she just a teenager. All teenagers are beasts and whores because YOU can't think of any other label for it.

Did I personally have sex with supple young teenage Filipino girls in their parents' Catholicism-adorned house? Actually, right in the parents' bed. I was only 17 at the time. I've challenged my father to a fight, I've gotten impatient with grandparents for taking too long a turn playing a game, I've sat around that living room watching MTV while hitting the bong and bitching about how I couldn't wait to leave the wretched town. I've done it; it happens.

Never jerked off to womens' tennis while asphyxiating myself with a robe belt, but...

It's areas like these that Clark starts to lose me. There is much more male nudity in "Ken Park" than female, so don't be expecting some wild teenaged orgy. There is not even that much actual sex in the movie. In fact, if the main characters in this film were but... 4 years older... I guarantee you this would not be banned here in America.

Visalia has - NEVER - looked as good as it does in "Ken Park" and never will again. It is photographed and directed by two ace DPs after all, so the screen composition, lighting and shading are all luminous and... for lack of a better adjective: warm. As in hospitable. The film looks more expensive than it is.

My favorite scenes are actually the opening scene and the VERY final scene. Without these strong bookends, I'd easily knock off another half-star. I personally detest Harmony Korine (the kid is just a pretentious skater prick that thinks he's Tarantino to the 12th power), however I do like this script... because it's ripped right out of the headlines.

Parents, this is not every teenager. It's really not. But it is a lot of them. "Ken Park" does not seek to illuminate the teenaged psyche en masse, but to offer examples of what we think is tragic and squalid... to be rather mundane existence. With the rather few exceptions of "shock for shock's sake" scenes, it deserves more credit than it's been given. Clark's best film is still "Bully", but "Ken Park" has its merits.

Only for those with less discriminating tastes, obviously. Tread lightly, but if you like your cinema to ignore boundaries (a la Miike Takashi) this one'll send you past the envelope.

3.5 stars, but I'll round up for audacity.

Larry Clark's "Ken Park" is a divisive, controversial film for those who see cinema as strictly entertainment. On the other hand, viewers who approach this film as art, with an open mind, will see the beauty and tragedy of Mr. Clark's vision. Okay, let's just get one thing out of the way right off the bat - there is a whole bunch of nudity and sexual situations involving young actors playing teenagers in "Ken Park," and many scenes are purposefully uncomfortable. Topics covered in Harmony Korine's freewheeling screenplay include; incest, both straight and gay; teenage suicide; teenage pregnancy; auto-erotic asphyxiation; threesomes; a rat-faced skate-punk performing graphic cunnilingus on his girlfriend's mother, and bloody parricide. That said, the film is beautifully shot, and naturalistically acted, creating a very convincing slice-of-life. Make no bones about it, you will not be hit on the head with any traditional notion of plot or storyline, you are just given a snapshot into the sad lives of a handful of California teenagers. I guess this film is a litmus-test of some kind, but I thought that it was beautiful, terrible, tragic, and fascinating by turns. It definitely is an acquired taste, but then, I've dug all of Larry Clark's films, even his remake of "Teenage Caveman," which shares several young cast-members with "Ken Park." If you are feeling adventurous some night, watch this movie.

No, I don't own this version of the DVD, which is PAL, but having seen the film...

This is, apparently, the film Larry Clark has been wanting to make his own career. It was supposed to be his first film, but due to timing and availability of money, it turned out to be a few films into his impressive resume of demented tales of the young and the disillusioned.

If you thought Bully was disturbing...Ken Park is playing on some other level. Bully is a better film, more complete, a story to tell with more character development. Ken Park is like a thing, a non-specific moment in time. It looks like it could be the 70s, it more or less takes place today with little detail or technology to date it because that's not the point. The point is to show some of the, er, better behavior people demonstrate behind closed doors.

I don't totally know how to consider this film. Suffice to say that Larry just doesn't pull punches. Everyone gets naked, close to every taboo is discussed and shown, and in the end, the only thing left is for the downtrodden characters to have an orgy and find something in themselves that they can't get from their parents or the outside world. Something like that. The framing story is about the suicide, graphically shown, of course, of the titular Ken Park, who can't go on because...well, we only learn why in the closing scene.

This film has not been able to get distribution. About five minutes in...you'll know why. "Uh, Larry, I think we need to talk about distribution." I highly doubt this will be playing in any theaters soon, except maybe an art house or two, literally, on the coasts. Made in 2002, it's still being sought after every day by more and more folks who find it on eBay cheaper and cheaper.

It looks a lot more expensive than the purported $1.3 million budget; apparently Clark and his co-directing DP called in favor after favor to get the film done. True outlaw style.

Hard to recommend. Larry Clark just might be a genius, and totally out of his mind.

Hard to watch at times due to its unflinching realism and unsympathetic characters, Larry Clarke's hard to find "Ken Park" centers around a quartet of dysfunctional friends in Visalia, California after the death of a fellow student (named Ken Park). Clarke takes his camera into the lives of the teens whose own lives aren't exactly rosy. Shawn is having an affair with his girlfriends mother; Peaches is the surrogate wife for her widowed father who is still in mourning; Claude is having difficulty with his parents (particularly his obnoxious father), who are about to have another child, but should have instead been sterilized; and lastly there is Tate, the psycho who lives with his parents and has a passion for women's tennis. With real actors playing alongside the teens, it is difficult to watch at times due to the lack of acting talent, but the adults rounding out the cast - including the always riveting Amanda Plummer as Claude's pregnant mother - make up for it.

It's explict and really hard to find - pretty much banned in the US, but I purchased my copy off eBay for $10.

This is the film that rocked the Venice film festival last year and was deemed "undistributable" in its uncensored form. It follows four dysfunctional teenagers and their families in the skateboarding community of Visalia, California. There's Peaches, the 16-year old schoolgirl raised by a religiously fanatical father, Tate jerks off while watching pro tennis on TV, skateboarder Claude is the object of his father's obsession, while Shawn sleeps with his girlfriend's mother.

Self-confessed Wong Kar-wai admirer Larry Clark (who also directed KIDS) is a former photographer, and it's obvious in the way that the film is presented. Rather than tell a single, coherent story, Clark takes "mobile snapshots" of the characters. There are no explanations here, only portraits. Neither is there any beginning, middle, or end a fact reinforced by the use of the titular character's suicide as a framing device. Despite this, the film never feels confusing or disjointed: it's merely like walking through an art exhibit and leaving one portrait to proceed to the next.

Envelope-pushing topics portrayed include explicit teenage sex; autoerotic asphyxiation; bondage sex; incest; masturbation; threesomes; full-frontal nudity (both male and female); murder and drug use. The notoriety of the hardcore sex scenes is perhaps best explained by Clark himself: "In this movie, I'm showing everything. For every vagina, there's a penis." That's a lot to tackle in one film, but Clark tries his best to keep the film from straying into the realms of sensationalist exploitation and for the most part, he succeeds.

The characters depicted in Ken Park are exaggerations of reality but they were not so unrealistic that I couldn't identify with them. Even if they're not the kids next door, they could still exist in real life. We read more extreme examples in the newspapers everyday.

Although the majority of the cinema-going public may flinch at such a graphic depiction of modern teen life, it's vital that artists keep producing works that are true to life and that challenge our moral sensibilities.

CAPSULE: Not the most uplifting film I have ever seen. From the director of "Kids" comes another story, or set of stories, of teens growing up in a permissive society without direction or values. The film is fascinating, but sort of like watching a road accident. From co-directors and co-cinematographers Larry Clark, the director of "Kids", and novice director Ed Lachman comes a film like "Kids"set in a more suburban setting. "Ken Park" is pretty nihilistic stuff. It is a view of sixteen-year-olds (or about that) growing with no values beyond hedonism. It is also very frank and explicit stuff.

The film takes place in the suburban town of Visalia, California and follows four friends, Shawn, Claude, Peaches, and Tate. Shawn (James Bullard) has been seduced by his girlfriend's attractive mother. She uses him as a sex toy and he enjoys comparing sex with mother and daughter. Claude (Stephen Jasso) is bullied and accused of being gay by his bully of a father. Peaches (Tiffany Limos) is kept on what seems like a short leash by her Christian fundamentalist father, but she still manages a very active sex life. Tate (James Ransone) is just weird. He is being raised by grandparents whom he makes no secret of loathing by cussing them out explicitly to their faces. The fifth musketeer is the title character Ken Park who shoots himself through the head in the first sequence of the film.

Supposedly everything that happens in "Ken Park" is taken from a true incidents. However, this appears to be a sort of High School Sodom concentrate. The director, who presented the film at the Toronto Festival was quick to say that all the actors engaging in sex were over eighteen, but they look younger and the film is very explicit. Very, very explicit. Many of the actors in the film are first-time performers whom the directors found in a skateboard park in Visalia. And were naturals before the camera.

There could be said to be three or four story threads. One could question whether they are really stories since they do not necessarily conclude. Each is more a portrait or a situation. The threads are good as not particularly narratives. Even if the stories are all based on real incidents their density, all happening at the same time to small group of friends, seems unlikely. Three or four stories reach a climax in one night. They include murder, incest, pederasty, and a couple things not in my thesaurus. Not all films based on true incidents are necessarily realistic. If this is a realistic portrait of youth today we are all in trouble.

Whether this film has any real message or is just an exercise in bleak nihilism leavened with teenage pornography is a moot point. The film is intended to shock and drew mostly a younger audience anxious to be shocked. Whether or not "Ken Park" is pornographic is a question not of the facts but of interpretation. The film features not simply nudity but male masturbation, cunilingus, and urination. (...)

I believe they have since changed the information, but when I ordered this, under "Region:" it said "All Regions", so I bought it, since I can only play Regions 0 or 1 on my DVD. But, of course, I get a Region 3 DVD in the mail, and the seller won't answer my emails. Stay away from this product if you are in the U.S. and can only play Regions 0 or 1!!!!

Well, I have just seen a Russian version of the DVD on a region free DVD-ROM and I wasn't surprised by the level of content. I was expecting unflinching scenes of graphic sex, but was shocked and a bit disturbed from the depiction of brutally honest acts of paraphilia. There are many uncut scenes of coitus, cunnilingus, masturbation, menage trois, and a bit of S&M, which some may think excessive and others may find unwatchable. During many of these scenes, it was painfully unsettling to view myself, but then i thought about my thought process. Our traditional, civilized society automatically triggers them as taboo in our psyche and we automatically dismiss it as pornographic or exploitative. When in reality it shows these paraphiliac acts with unflinching realism that it forces us to think about why we are caught up in the controversy of its extremity when we should just accept them as standard sexual dysfunctions in our society. Having said that, I would just like to say this film is daring and audacious, staking new grounds in realism of American suburban life. That it would have me thinking so deeply about its content is proof of how thought provoking this film is. Yes, this film shows uncut sex, full frontal male nudity (many times), and disturbing images of psychotic rage and sexual dysfunction. It raises many questions about society and doesn't even begin to answer them. Some people complain that it lacks structure, story, moral center, and contains too much sex.
1. The structure is typical of the generation X screenplay: it doesn't have a coherent one, but jumps around from character to character.
2. The story is told from multiple narrators, all of whom are childhood friends.
3. The moral center is ambiguous and can contain several different interpretations.
My take on the moral is that of our society's repression of sexuality. We try so hard to maintain a civilized facade, that sometimes we forget that we are uncontrollable sexual animals. This can lead to disastrous results as this sexual monster of a predator builds up inside, waiting to be unleashed. Sometimes in the form of paraphilia. Sometimes we forget that people with paraphilia are human and have probably suffered some sexual trauma or sexual repression as youths. That is where the film doesn't explain: how did these characters become like this? Then theres the uncut sexual content. I believe this film is making a statement about not only sexual dysfunctions but about how we view them in our society. The impulsive response is to say ucch, what a sicko, or perv, and that automatically blinds any form of sympathy or empathy. Showing these acts unfold in real time, without cutting away, forcing us to view it, forces us to deal with the issue. This is true of all Clarks films (Another Day in Paradise being the most conventional). As for the ending, I believe Ken Park killed himself because he couldn't live to see his child grow in such a dysfunctional society. His response to him not being aborted says it all. So to sum up I couldn't stop thinking about this film. It was shocking, yes. Disturbing, yes. But it definitely requires discussion afterwards.
-depictions of Paraphilia
1.Peaches the exhibitionist (she let the boys watch her undress)
2.Tate the hypoxyphile (choking himself while masturbating)
3.Tate the necrophile (he gets hard while observing his grandparents corpses)
4.Peaches the sexual sadist (tying Curtis to the bed)
5.Peaches dad the pedofile(marrying his daughter; maybe not pedophilia considering Peaches age but not right anyhow) if you would then you'd also call
6.Claudes father a pedophile (fellatio on his son) and also
7.Rhonda's affair with Shawn (although i wouldn't mind being taken by her)

I honestly have been looking for this film for months and I'm very pleased that I bought it. I loved the film but I was a little surprised by how pornographic it was. When Larry Clark he decided he wasn't going to shoot from the waist up or close any doors he really meant it. Wonderfully done and pretty decent acting. I recommend it to all Larry Clark fans.