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Julien Donkey-Boy Strips Filmmaking Bare
The Scandinavian Dogme School of Film believes in
"no-frills filmmaking," and aims to cleanse cinema of "decadence," resurrecting
it from the "dead cosmeticised" fare churned out by Hollywood. The shocking
Julien Donkey-Boy, directed by Harmony Korine, is one example of the Dogme
genre...
Julien’s gold teeth shine menacingly and his black, permed hair flops over his crazed, pointy face. He is a schizophrenic, has been abused by his father and has made his sister pregnant. He is the "donkey-boy." Sounds wierd? Julien Donkey-Boy is the latest disturbing creation from enfant-terrible director Harmony Korine, and the first U.S. movie to emerge from the Scandinavian Dogme School of Film.
After his startling debut Gummo, about two glue-sniffing kids who sell dead cats to pay for sex with a Down’s Syndrome prostitute, Julien... is another dark tale about dysfunctional America, with an unhealthy appetite for freaks.
A self-taught filmmaker fascinated with the grotesque, Korine, 25, joined the Dogme brotherhood of "no-frills filmmaking" for his second directorial piece. That meant no sets, props, make-up, lighting, wild stunts, camera tricks or background music. Only a hand-held camera and actors. Korine, a former scriptwriter and skateboarding champion, went one step further -- he ditched the script. "I don’t believe in scripts anymore, I think it’s a dead art form. Why inflict dead words on real life? It’s much more exciting to invent a sense of chaos, and decipher the chaos afterward," he says.
Heralded by Bernardo Bertolucci as the future of cinema, Korine has won over directors from Abel Ferrara to Werner Herzog, and landed the critics’ prize at the Venice and Rotterdam film festivals for Gummo. In contrast, the New York Times slammed it as "the worst of the year."
In his short career, which began when he wrote the film Kids at 19, Korine has managed to offend as much as he has amused. Julien Donkey-Boy is no exception. Donkey-look-alike Julien, based on an uncle of Korine, now locked up in a mental asylum, lives with his pregnant sister, athlete brother and an overbearing father, who likes nothing better than to listen to country music in a gas mask, and to hang out with an armless neighbour who plays the drums.
"I’d never seen schizophrenia done in a meaningful way in cinema, and the Dogme brotherhood seemed a good idea for this, as it’s about being pure and not hiding behind tricks and lies," says Korine.
The brainchild of a group of Scandinavian directors, Dogme 95 is a manifesto of 10 commandments that aims to cleanse cinema of "decadence," and such Hollywood fare as high-speed car chases, gruesome murders or simulated sex scenes. To cap it all, the director gets no screen credit. "Cinema was dead and called for resurrection. Movies have been cosmeticised to death," opines Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, one of the founders.
Having spawned such successes as Vinterberg’s Cannes winner Festen (The Celebration), the movement is drawing filmmakers from around the world, and is no longer ridiculed as a bad Scandinavian joke. "I really respect the philosophy, it really stretched and challenged me as an actor. But it wasn’t taken too seriously," says Ewen Bremner of Trainspotting fame, who plays Julien.
Indeed, Korine has written a tongue-in-cheek confession to accompany the film on how he broke the manifesto rules. "I confess to Chloe Sevigny’s (Julien’s sister) pregnant belly not being truly pregnant. I tried to impregnate her myself, but there wasn’t enough time," Korine writes, adding a pair of flip-flop ice-skates and balloons blown up by the cast among other sins.
Korine, who as a child attended a progressive school for "people a little out of the ordinary," gave his actors only the outline of a story to work from, forcing them to improvise on set. With no rehearsals and few retakes, filming took just one month. Many scenes used hidden cameras to capture real life situations, from a confession in church to buying baby clothes.
"We had cameras hidden everywhere, even in glasses,
and afterwards, we’d ask people involved to sign waivers so we could
use the footage. Some of it didn’t work, and people thought we were
crazy," reveals Sevigny, who is Korine’s on-off
girlfriend.
For his next project, Korine has stuck with the Dogme label, but is finding it takes him a bit too close to real life for comfort. In Fight, Korine goes up to men in the street, and taunts them until they beat him up, while a cameraman films from across the street.
So far, he has been arrested several times, and admitted to a hospital with a broken ankle, concussion and cracked ribs -- with less than 30 minutes of footage to show for it. "I overlooked the fact that fights don’t last very long. I think it’ll have to be a short film," he smiles.
Julien Donkey-Boy was shown out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, and premiered in US on October 8.
