Julien Donkey-Boy (1999)

I wanted to but couldn't!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

As a fan of Korine's work that I have viewed so far (Gummo, Spring Breakers), I have been looking forward to viewing JDB for quite some time now. Finding a copy of the film was the toughest part, but I eventually did come across one, and the viewing certainly did live up to expectation. Julien Donkey-Boy is Harmony Korine's second feature film, and follows the lives of a dysfunctional family. The father (Werner Herzog) is mean, brutish, tough, and creepy. He is hard on his children; a pregnant girl (Chloe Sevigny), a wannabe wrestler son (Evan Neumann) and a schizophrenic son, Julien. The film essentially has no real plot. Instead, we follow this family around for a few weeks or so. Time feels irrelevant. We see the family get up to many things. The father is constantly pushing his wrestling son to be tough, and doesn't appear to have a care for Julien, who clearly needs love and kindness around him. Various events happen. As I said, it is hardly plot driven. More so just an insight into their vastly interesting and obscure lives. What connected with me the most with this film was the realism. JDB is easily one of the most real, honest, most human films I have ever seen, and I would also say that for Korine's other films. What Korine does so incredibly well in his work is creating a world. The film genuinely feels like a documentary. With the combination of the filming style, to the characters, to the events, to the performances - this film genuinely feels like real life. Quite an obscure and uncomfortable atmosphere is felt, and it comes very naturally. The film feels as though Korine has got his old video camera out and filmed this random family for days. We maybe don't know people like this personally, but we know there are people exactly like this out there in the world. We are taken on a journey by the filmmaker and delve into these peoples lifestyle for a period of time, and it is utterly fascinating. The approach to the film is in no way insulting or degrading these people, it is an honest and fair depiction of their lifestyle. That is something that I cannot praise Korine enough for. He looks at these people with such care and emotion and honesty, that we connect with them as human beings. We do not look down upon them, with walk along side them and become part of their lifestyle for the duration of the film. As we watch disabled people enjoy themselves, we get a feeling of real happiness within us. A real humanity. This film oozes with realness. It's hard to believe it's fiction.As I mentioned, this is helped massively by two things: the visuals and the acting. The visual style of this film is what will divide viewers. With extremely rough, grainy, pixelated, blurry visuals, some may watch it and feel as though it is headache inducing. For me, however, this visual style that Korine loves so much simply adds to the films realism. It feels as though this is home footage. As if there is actually someone down there with these people, filming them with an old video camera. Again, as I said, it feels like a documentary. As if I am watching real people, real lives, real events. And there is something emotionally engaging about that. The camera moves so naturally, as if it were handled by someone who was sitting right there with these people. It doesn't feel like a film, the camera doesn't flow smoothly like a Kubrick film. It isn't mapped out like a PTA long take. It just moves and observes, as if by freehand. Once again, adding to the realistic feeling of this film. If anything, the visual style may be a bit too much at times. The performances are out of this world. Herzog, believe it or not, is outstanding and infuriating, as the father. Sevigny is enchanting and likable and caring as the sister. But the absolute stand out (and I might go as far as to say one of the best performances I've ever seen) is Ewen Bremner as Julien. Whilst watching this film I genuinely believed that this actor had all of the disabilities that the character had. His line (actually I think it was improvised) delivery, speech, actions were so believable that I didn't know if it was an act or not. Absolutely astounding. So, I've rambled about this film. I've been rather repetitive, but I don't know what else to say? This film is genuinely one of the realest film experiences I've ever had. The study of these peoples lives is simply fascinating, and I adored this film. It is honest, true, raw, real, heartfelt, sympathetic, heartbreaking. The film delved into these people's lives with such confidence and honesty, and the final product was an incredibly well crafted study of human life. We don't need to follow a complex plot, we just look at these peoples lives, and watch on as they go about their everyday lives. To them it is normality, to us it is obscure, but ultimately fascinating. I don't think I've ever experienced a film quite as down to earth and as real as this one, and I may never again? Honestly? I'm shocked. 9.5/10

Julian Donkey Boy, created under the Dogma 95 – Vow of Chastity, is in my opinion, one of the worst films I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through. The Vow of Chastity states that the director must refrain from personal taste, and not create a work of art. All shooting must be done on location, with hand held cameras, and no sound can be used unless it is found where the scene is being shot. It also prohibits the use of superficial actions such as murder. All of this is meant to lead to a film which forces the truth out of its characters and settings, even at the expense of aesthetic considerations and good taste.Harmony Korine has certainly managed to create a film with no apparent taste, and even less aesthetic consideration. All this could be acceptable if the end product gave its audience something to take away, other than feelings of disgust. In a film about a dysfunctional family, where Julian is either mentally ill, or mentally deficient, his sister is pregnant with his child, his mother is dead, and his father is abusive, you would expect to be both shocked and moved. The final scene where Julian's sister slips on the ice and miscarries their child should be incredibly emotional, but I found myself completely unmoved as after nearly 90 minutes, I had formed no emotional attachment to any of the characters. For this reason, I didn't find the story disturbing, it failed to have any effect on me at all.Some people have said that this is a tough film to sit through, and on that I would agree. But not because of the subject matter, rather that after sitting through an hour and a half of nauseating film making, we have been given nothing.Personally, I like to watch a film every now and again that is made unconventionally, as I think they are interesting and make great works of art. But this film isn't trying to be a work of art, rather the opposite, so you have to ask what is it really doing? In the end, the only reason so many films are made in such similar ways, is just like why stories are told with such similar devices, because that is what works, and that's what audiences want. This film is trying to drive a car with square wheels, just because everyone else has round ones. It may have had good intentions to begin with, but they have become lost somewhere amongst the flurry of vertiginous shots, and incoherent story line. Whilst a valuable educational resource for film students I wouldn't recommend this film for anyone else

As people see things, things see us. This extremely disturbing film about a man/boy with schizophrenia struggling through life with his twisted and mentally abusive dad, his sister who is pregnant with his baby, and his abused brother, is terrifyingly weird. With a film in which a boy is brutally smashed in the head with a stone and choked to death, a nun masturbates on the floor, and a armless man plays the drums, it is completely obvious that this film will only appeal to certain people. This film is freakish, but not in as good a way as GUMMO was. With all this being said, while the film was a hellish and emotional picture that is not for the mainstream(to say the least), I would never ever want to really see it again. This was just too much. It made me feel unclean in a way much deeper tan GUMMO. I felt my mind was permanently warped. I never want to even think about this film ever again. Thinking about it makes me feel nauseous. The images and the characters and the actions of them have gotten to me and Of course, this was probably Harmony Korine's intention. Many viewers won't feel the images they are seeing are necessary to for the to see. It is kind of a freak show in a way. It isn't so much the content that is bad. There are many events in the film that just feel wrong. Take for instance the scene where Julien attempts to sell skating shoes he made. He attempts to sell them to a boy who does not listen to what he has to say about his purportedly useless invention and instead swears and yells at him, telling him in exaggerated form that the shoes will kill people and that he wouldn't pay any money for them. The scene has no purpose other than to seemingly be insulting and depressing to the viewer who has already had their fair share of depressing events throughout the film. And yet it is done in such a way that is very lifelike and very realistic in terms of how the scene is constructed, but it seems so weird to want to film this sort of behavior. It has also been well known that for this film project, Harmony recorded real people's reactions of some of the strange behavior with hidden cameras. This adds genuine realism to the film along with the nasty stuff, as if it didn't have enough. It's a tough film to sit through. I think it's a good film, but I don't recommend it for fear that people will think I'm a sicko for thinking they will like it.

Julien Donkey Boy is a profoundly heartening anomaly in American cinema. It lacks the ubiquitous gunshots, explosions, and requited love that are so hideously redundant in the vast cesspool of Hollywood-style movies. This movie represents a step FORWARD. This is a step towards DEPTH and towards quality. Among other reasons, this is why it is a FINE film.This movie is something of a pastiche. Many people simply do not or can not handle the fact that it is not 'plot-driven' or that Ms. Julia Roberts is nowhere to be found, forever grinning like a wax doll. (Haven't we seen enough of her teeth anyway?). That is fine. Perhaps the more patient of that group could stand to see this movie a second time.In the traditions of the finest ART, this movie presents more questions than it does answers. What will come of Julian? Is he in fact incestuously involved with his sister? What is up with the curiously fascistic relationship between the German father and his athletic son? The casting of Herr Herzog and Ms. Sevigny, however, with a score of Puccini, amounts to nothing less than an amazing aesthetic experience worthy of the audiences of Claude SAUTET or Pier Paolo PASOLINI. Bravo to Mr. KORINE. I hope that there is more work of this caliber coming down the pike. As a fervent snob (how could you tell?), I take pleasure in making exception for this extraordinary achievement. FIVE STARS! I would not recommend this movie to young children or Republicans. ENCORE! ENCORE TUTTI! Until the day I die, my brother and I will always be shouting, 'DON'T SHIVER, BE A WINNER!' Thank you, maestri Herzog e Korine.