It takes a special kind of genius to make group sex, incest, suicide, and murder quite this dull. That genius is Larry Clark. Overwhelmed by exactly the fragmentary voyeurism that is the essence of his photography, Clark is seemingly unwilling or unable to extend any of the sensational moments he films far enough into either the past or the future to give them meaning; they remain instead iconic snapshots of Clark's private sexual obsessions. This means that while Clark is clearly very excited to pose his actors, he doesn't trouble at all with their characters, and this fixation on a physical presence (specifically of willing young men) that the viewer can't access becomes a black hole at the movie's centre.
Many of the things that happen - a young man who kills his grandparents, a boy who sleeps with his girlfriend's mother, a young woman forced to marry her insanely religious father - could have been the basis of a really interesting film if only they were followed through: each one is a beginning or a conclusion, but none is a story.The characters don't develop or change, the situations don't evolve, what occurs is without causes or repercussions. What happens to the girl who marries her father? How does the boy cope with cheating on his girlfriend with her adolescence-obsessed mother, and why would a grown woman do such a thing? Why does Tate kill his grandparents, and what happens to him? I'd be curious to know, but Larry Clark, clearly, is not: greedily, he wants only each story's most climactic moment, again and again, without context, without structure - and finally, unless you share just his taste in sexual imagery, without interest.
Many of the things that happen - a young man who kills his grandparents, a boy who sleeps with his girlfriend's mother, a young woman forced to marry her insanely religious father - could have been the basis of a really interesting film if only they were followed through: each one is a beginning or a conclusion, but none is a story.The characters don't develop or change, the situations don't evolve, what occurs is without causes or repercussions. What happens to the girl who marries her father? How does the boy cope with cheating on his girlfriend with her adolescence-obsessed mother, and why would a grown woman do such a thing? Why does Tate kill his grandparents, and what happens to him? I'd be curious to know, but Larry Clark, clearly, is not: greedily, he wants only each story's most climactic moment, again and again, without context, without structure - and finally, unless you share just his taste in sexual imagery, without interest.