Stars: Chloe Sevigny, Ewen Bremner, Joyce Korine, Evan Neumann, Brian Fisk, Werner Herzog, Chrissy Kobylak

Director: Harmony Korine

Summary: An insight into an American dysfunctional family which consists of Julien who is schizophrenic, his sister chloe who is pregnant, his brother Chris who wants to wrestle professionally and his strict father.

Flashing a mouthful of fake gold teeth, Julien (Ewen Bremner) wanders the streets of New York City, mumbling nonsensical syllables to himself. He tries to avoid the abuse of his sadistic drunken gas-mask-wearing father (German director Werner Herzog). He cracks a young boy's head open with a rock. He befriends a blind figure skater. He wears a bra and underwear as he wrestles with his younger brother. And his sister, Pearl (Chloe Sevigny), is pregnant--with Julien's child.

Writer-director Harmony Korine succeeds remarkably well in showing the world through Julien's eyes: a schizophrenic kaleidoscope of images--some hauntingly beautiful, some disturbing and violent. The first American film made in accordance with the Danish filmmaking manifesto Dogma 95 (which also includes THE CELEBRATION and MIFUNE), JULIEN DONKEY-BOY uses no cinematic tricks such as artificial lighting or studio sound. Shot on handheld digital video, the film was transferred to 16mm stock before being blown up to 35mm film for the final print. Korine used this unique method to give the film the low-definition, degraded look of an old Super-8 home movie. Pushing the envelope further, Korine rejects classic narrative storytelling in favor of a more poetic succession of scenes. The result is a gritty, surreal collage that powerfully and touchingly evokes the schizophrenic experience as few films have.

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There's going to be no middle-ground in your opinion of Harmony Korine's second film Julien Donkey Boy--it's either a blazing, daring masterpiece or one of the worst movies ever made. Ewen Bremner, the gawkiest of the Trainspottinggang, transforms himself into the terrifying yet pathetic Julien, with curly black hair, removable teeth, a letter-perfect American maniac accent and the body language of the truly demented. Julien is a schizophrenic but rather than observe his mental problems the film chooses to crawl inside them--we're never sure how much of what we see is actually happening and none of the "sane" characters make much sense either. Julien's family consists of a brother (Evan Neuman) who is constantly climbing stairs like a lizard to beef himself up for a contest that turns out to be ridiculous, a pregnant sister (Chloe Sevigny) who sometimes phones him up pretending to be their dead mother and a hard man father (Werner Herzog) who douses him with freezing water to toughen him up and delivers a bizarrely sincere soliloquy about the superiority of the ending of Dirty Harryover Julien's pretentious improvised poem. Though it comes with a certificate of authenticity from the Danish Dogma 95 movement, it violates several of the cardinal rules of their manifesto epitomised by Festenand The Idiots: there is unsourced music on the soundtrack, special effects in the form of pixellated or freeze-frame images and action as family arguments explode into scrum-like fights (Korine's directorial debut, Gummo, was closer in spirit to the movement). It opens and closes with the tragic deaths of children, but is mostly a shapeless series of scenes that deliver an impression of madness rather than a story. Bits of it are undeniably irritating, just as mad people usually are, but there are lucid flashes where Korine gets his cast to focus on their characters and provide great scenes. --Kim Newman

Aspect Ratio:	Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 0
Special Features:	The Making Of Julian Donkey Boy, Star And Director Filmographies, 2 Deleted Scenes, Trailer, Film Review, Scene Selection
Year:	1999
Release Date:	April 16, 2001
Runtime:	94 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	T V D 3324
Keywords:	Boy, General, Wide, Screen, Donkey, Drama, Julien
Genre:	Drama