Trash Humpers

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🎙️ EPISODE 430: 03.25.22 W冢h †hê VïÐêð Vêr§ïðñ BELOW If you're making a list ranking Harmony Korine's films then this one has to either be DEAD LAST or FIRST, the best thing he's ever made. There's (legally) no in-between. Sorry those are the rules. I'll stack it last, not because I didn't like it but because I never want to watch it ever again. It's spiritually the successor to Gummo, ON THE SURFACE (both are repellant, filmed in Nashville, etc.), but I think, with a deeper glance, it reveals itself as its own thing, easily the most anti-movie movie Korine's ever made, and possibly the most anti-movie movie anyone's ever made ever.

At the very least, this is an exercise in wanting: wanting to know what it is. Is it really a bunch of freaks wearing old person masks LITERALLY humping trash, and doing other similarly weird things. (Yes, yes it is.) But it's also about simply WANTING. Our culture of "Want Want Want" is on full display, not in the imagery onscreen but In the experience of The Watcher, seeing these base-level animals interact with each other and objects. Watching this is a form of torture as is American Life. Who is being debased here exactly? We WANT to know!

Where the similarities to Gummo ring true are in its combination of actors acting and non-actors not acting. When the non-actors are onscreen, the film is void of any performative pretense, in the most literal way. Life is so fucked, there's no difference between performance and reality. This idea is not unique to Korine's work, as many documentary filmmakers have explored the nuance of similar human freak shows who seem to operate outside the context of societal norms. The difference here is the juxtaposition of the "trash humpers," seemingly normal people in disguise who are... "acting." That some of the "real" people are interacting with the "trash humpers" at face value feels impossible, but their lives are so weird to begin with that they can't see past the artifice, perhaps can't see that this is a performance at all. The scripted parts of Gummo bite much harder because the leads aren't all necessarily just Korine's friends. But the connection between the real and unreal might be more interesting here.

In an interview Korine said...

“I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t like provoking an audience. What I want to provoke is a real reaction. I can’t imagine making something and not wanting people to feel it even if a large portion of the audience doesn’t want to have anything to do with the feeling. With this film I was really interested in making something real with a tangible message.” [SOURCE]

Whereas the confrontational nature of Gummo at times feels like too much to bear, and in that way, more naturalistic, this comes off as a put-on from the word go. That doesn't make it worse, or less/more tolerable, just different vibes.

Towards the end, one of the "trash humpers" opines about the stupid, stupid way people to choose to live. Unlike how "they" choose to live, which is freely. A running goof is the exploitation and desecration of plastic baby dolls in increasingly strange situations. When the movie culminates with the slow reveal of a real human baby in the presence of these freaks, it feels like a breach of contact between the audience and the filmmaker. But the message was clear from the get-go, if you were listening: "make it, don't fake it." Simply being born is cause enough for all the weird pain and weird joy we can imagine.

ｐａｒｔ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ＲＡＮＫＩＮＧ • ＨＡＲＭＯＮＹ • ＫＯＲＩＮＥ ｓｅｒｉｅｓ

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 429 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 431 ⫸

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Trash Humpers is a 2009 experimental black comedy horror film written and directed by Harmony Korine. Shot on worn VHS home video, the film features a "loser-gang cult-freak collective"[2] living in Nashville, Tennessee. It was released on September 12, 2009.