Customer Reviews

Ken Park (Uncut Uncensored NTSC Region Free!) [DVD] Larry Clark

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Ken Park" has been controversial because of its explicit presentation of actual sexual acts by actors portraying high school kids and because it has been banned in some English-speaking countries and has no distributor in the others. I suspect that the notoriety has overshadowed the actual merits of the film.

The plot is presented as several intercut stories. The stories themselves are almost completely isolated from one another aside from the fact that all the characters know each other quite well. The stories progress parallel to one another, and the characters have absolutely no interaction with one another until the next to last sequence. That scene may summarize the common attitude that prevails among these teenagers, but it doesn't pack much of a punch. In fact the whole movie doesn't pack much of a punch. I'm not sure it really tries to. It simply tells these stories directly with not moral judgments and lets them loose for the audience to make of them what they will.

That is not to say that the performances are weak. They aren't. Most of the young actors had only marginal prior experience in film acting, but they gave decent, workmanlike performances that were perfectly adequate. The supporting adult actors were better, but they generously avoided overshadowing the less experienced actors. So there's not any mismatch within the cast.

The cinematography, art direction, and editing don't call attention to themselves which in this movie is a good thing. The special effects in the violent scenes are believable and seamless. I liked the way the film looked.

The musical score is appropriate and not manipulative. It doesn't get in the way of our personal responses to the stories. That is a real strength in this film. The dialog is always clear. You won't miss a single line. So the movie sounds good.

So there is nothing really wrong with this film. The viewer will like or dislike this film mainly based on how willing he is to empathize with the high schoolers whose stories form the core of the movie. Those stories strike me as pretty extreme, and the characters are not particularly sympathetic, but if they achieve "buy-in," the movie succeeds.

Some will be offended by the actual sex in the film. Others will be offended that these actors are portraying underage characters. That's a matter of personal preference and values, but the sexual contours of the characters' lives are central to the film. So the film did not seem to be exploitive, prurient, or coy (like some of Larry Clark's earlier films were).

Taken in its entirety, the movie is pretty good and better than most of Larry Clark's earlier films.

This film isn't for everybody, in fact most would probably be put off by this film. It is gritty to the max. I have seen Kidz & Bully. This is yet another foray into the world of teen angst. As in all Larry Clark's films, he seems to portray teens with absolutely no direction that invariably does not end well. In Kidz. you had a selfish teen who only thought of his own desires and inevitably passed on AIDs. In Bully, which was actually based on a true incident in Florida, it ended up with murder of a not so nice teen. The teens portrayed in Ken Park, were not the creme of the crop by far, but yet another group of dysfunctional teens. They had absolutely no direction and lived for the moment. The oral sex in this movie is explicit as are some other scenes of fondling. If you are looking to be entertained, there is nothing entertaining about this movie. There is nothing ludicrous about the scenes portrayed in this film. They are just plain ugly as is real life in some situations.
I gave it 4 stars primarily because of the film quality and production quality, as well as story. This thing will only appeal to those fans of Larry Clark as I don't think anyone else will like it. He has never been shy with his direction and this is no exception. In this, there was very little restraint shown in what he wanted to do. You have been warned, so watch it if you dare.

"Ken Park" might be Clark's best film, brilliantly negotiating the lines between pornography and psychodrama as he continues his investigation into suburban teenagers' struggles to survive in a world beleaguered by adult pathology. For all intensive purposes, this is an emotional horror film.

OK, so this movie may not be for the faint of heart. It deals with life, death and sex in a candid and explicit way. No candy coating, no frivolity. Just the what life deals these people. If you have sophisticated movie tastes, and are not prudish about sexual content (the sex scenes are not simulated), then give this movie a try.

Larry Clark's Ken Park is probably unlike any film you've ever seen. The basic premise is easy enough : suburbia is not always the clean respectable place it seems. Underneath the normalcy there lies a world of secrets and terror worse than our greatest nightmares. People are trapped in this world and the only way out may be extreme.

Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn( James Bullard) seems to be the most conventional except for the monor fact that he's sleeping with his girlfriend's mother (Maeve Quinlan). Tate (James Ransone) is brimming with psychotic rage and living with his grandparents in a powderkeg on the verge of exploding; Claude (Stephen Jasso) is habitually harassed by his brutish father for his skating lifestyle and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother(Amanda Plummer). Peaches(Tiffany Limos) looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim. But they spend precious little time together and none of them seems to know much about one another's family lives. This bizarre dichotomy underscores their alienation as the result of suburban ennui, a teenager's inherent sense of melodrama, and the disturbing nature of their home environments.

Clark doesnt shy away from difficult subject matter but sometimes he gets extreme. This film has been banned in many countries for its frank and disturbing sexuality even though the portrayal is far from erotic. While this is not a film that many will enjoy it does have much to recommend it. Most of its critics fail to view the film for its story and focus rather on the nudity involved. That said I find much to recommend this effort even though it is rather difficult viewing.

I found this movie moving and thoughtworthy. It tells the story of four typical teenagers, 15-16 years old. It chronicles their issues with loneliness, derision at home, sex, acceptance and alienation in their social settings and devotion to each other.

It is a true explanation of teenage life in the 21st Century. These are real stories, not written, simple, truthful. They are not noir stories, or happy endings. They are the depiction of the lives of authentic teenagers (they are not actors, by the way).

This film does not shy away from the physical sex of young adults,in explicit terms (masturbation and intercourse), which, of course, we all remember. It is part of the story, that's all.

Parents need to watch this provocative film-their children already know.

This is a gem of a movie. The acting was superb. Great plot. The movie was not attempting to present a moral viewpoint. It conveys a statement that we all have issues of varying degrees. And it's great to have people with whom you can take a load-off and just chill with. A great deal of intellignece went into the making of this film.
This movie is sexually explicit. But it is making a social point. This movie is an excellent collector's item of erotic cinema.

Ken Park was a really well done film it holds up to the Larry Clark standards some scenes were graphic and kind off made you think to your self what's up with this movie but over all it is worth watching!

....not one of Larry Clark's best, but certainly one of his most outrageous. 'Ken Park' is like 'Happiness' meets...well, Larry Clark. This somewhat disturbing and depraved little flick revolving around four Southern California teens (three males, one female) from different social backrounds experimenting in raunchy activity intrigues at times, but is unfortunately boggled down with silly over-the-top scenarios and moments (an autoerotic asphyxiation scene sure to assault the male senses; a drunken father turns homosexual predator on his own son) - that even left U.S. distributors queasy enough to not want to touch it after the 2002 Telluride Film Festival, hence the reason for the Russian DVD case arriving at your door. But perhaps the most interesting of the protagonists is Shawn (James Bullard), a young man lucky enough to be shagging his girlfriend's MILF mom when nobody's home. When her hubby and daughter are around, they're a typical family. I would have liked to know more about this and where it goes, but unfortunately Mr. Clark wasn't interested in cluing us in. But we do get an orgy moment! Yup, typical Larry I guess.

I won't bore you with what the movie is all about, other reviewers have done that, and I don't see the point adding to what has been comprehensively covered. For myself, I was disappointed with the movie. I thought the subject matter was an excellent topic, adolescence, the problems of teenagers growing up, etc etc., and felt a lot more could have been done with it I felt the producers only scratched the surface of their topic, and although I watched the complete movie, I found it pretty boring. Sure there were a few higlights, the kid having oral sex with his girlfriends mother, who was a bit of a babe, and the threesome at the end, but it takes a lot more than that to keep my interest in a movie.