FemaleFirst.co.uk: DVD: Julien Donkey Boy [1999] [DVD]

Julien Donkey Boy [1999] [DVD]
enlarge	Director: Harmony Korine Actors: Ewen Bremner, Brian Fisk, Chloë Sevigny, Werner Herzog, Joyce Korine Studio: Palisades Tartan Category: DVD List Price: ~~£19.99~~ Buy New: £6.89 as of 22/11/2009 02:47 GMT details You Save: £13.10 (66%) New (12) Used (3) from £6.00 Seller: findprice Rating: 11 reviews Sales Rank: 16212 Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen Language: English (Original Language) Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over Region: 0 Discs: 1 Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1 Number Of Discs: 1 Running Time: 94 Minutes Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2 Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 EAN: 5023965332424 ASIN: B00005AMFF Theatrical Release Date: 1999 Release Date: April 16, 2001 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days


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Editorial Reviews: Amazon.co.uk Review There's going to be no middle-ground in your opinion of Harmony Korine's second film IJulien Donkey Boy/I--it's either a blazing, daring masterpiece or one of the worst movies ever made. Ewen Bremner, the gawkiest of the ITrainspotting/I gang, 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 IDirty Harry/I over 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 IFesten/I and IThe Idiots/I: 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, IGummo/I, 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. --IKim Newman/I

Customer Reviews: Showing reviews 1-5 of 11 1 2 3 Next » Poignant study of personal and family decay March 16, 2003 Dr. D. Tracy (London) 16 out of 17 found this review helpful A touching tale of a young man's attempts to understand the world around him through the hazed glasses of psychosis. Beginning and ending with images of an ice-skater, the film explores the juxtaposition between such beauty and freedom of form with the harsh reality of life.brJulien, the main character, suffers not only from schizophrenia, but also the brutality of life which has drawn deeply on his dysfuntional family. A harsh, severe father gives his children confused and ambiguous lessons on life, most beautifully countered by Julien's poem "Morning chaos, evening chaos, night chaos", which surmises his existence tersely.brIn the face of this, the children draw strength from each other; Julien's pregnant sister pretends to be his dead mother over the telephone to comfort him. The pregnancy itself is shrouded in mystery, with undertones of an incestuous affair. Julien's claiming of the resultant stillborn child as his is, I feel, best taken as a metaphor for an unholy love, a product of their shared existence, and a statement of their future. In this way, it may be felt to echo David Lynch's 'Eraserhead', and indeed the main protagonists hurt by and for the world resonate deeply with each other. brA beautiful movie, a parable of the struggle and difficulty of life. Morning Chaos Noon Chaos Midnight Chaos October 28, 2001 4 out of 6 found this review helpful Chloe Sevigny, Ewan Bremner, Werner Herzog and Harmony Korine have hip movie pedigrees but nothing prepares you for a film where blind bowlers bowl, black albinos rap, little brothers wrestle wheelie-bins and fathers do like yoga in gas masks. And Julien washes his gold fronts (removable teeth) in his lemonade. I suggest you see this film. We wonder, ever wonder how movies like these get made January 19, 2006 yorgos dalman (Holland, Europe) 3 out of 5 found this review helpful Sometimes, ever so sometimes, a movie turns up that hits you in places you didn#8217;t know you had. Or you did know you had them, you just didn#8217;t kow they could be touched and moved by a single cinematic experience. But watching #8220;Julien Donkey-Boy#8221; had had these feelings of sheer beauty in a world that ain#8217;t so beautiful at all. The brilliance of ugliness, the shinging of dead things in back alleys. Harmony Korine, a young maverick filmmaker who is more influenced by the European cinema than of his own country, paints in light and edits in lyric and movement, rather than in logic or rationally motivated choises.brThe character in the title is a mild mannered schizofrenic young man who lives in a rather disfunctional familiy, run by a millitant father. The narrative isn#8217;t really a story but more of a series of domestic and outdoor scenes, that together represent the shatered view of life of the leading character.brIt#8217;s a shattered view of life, but not necessarely a dark one, what you might expect. Korine doesn#8217;t go for the cheap tricks when it comes to portrait a mentally distrurbed person. Korine is a child looking curiously at the weird grown-up people around him, all doing strange and weird grown-up things. And the funny thing is that those actions of those grown-ups do more than once look very much like childish things. brThe movie isn#8217;t really about a schizofrenic young man at all; it#8217;s more a portrait of low life, and the shattering discovering that low life can also have a heart. Only at the surface it may seem like a freakshow, but underneath there is real blood flowing through real veins. brAnd talk about real and flowing: watch the scene where the pregnant sister (Chlo#235; Sevegny) is cutting the hair of her father, outside in the front yard, (the father, played by european movieicon Werner Herzog): The editing is just as wicked as brilliant, with on the soundtrack an old record on which Werner Herzog talks about a talking context for birds. Completely out of focus, both in form and content, and yet an unmissable part of the entire film #8211; and that shows just how gifted and original this rebellious young Korine is. Right on target pal April 30, 2002 Macke (Sweden) 3 out of 12 found this review helpful Well Harmony Korine really does it this time. With a hauntingly beautiful opening sceen of a delicate iceskating ballerina to schizzo spazz Julien who talks to Hitler in his basement; this movie jumps between the high and low like a bouncing ball. Blind peoples parties are great . I myself work with mentally retarded people and find the representations of the handicapped and disabled in this film very sensetive and loving. Touché Harmony, touché old boy. art cinema par excellence December 3, 2001 2 out of 9 found this review helpful Harmony Korine is a genius. He makes films that are at once sublimely hypnotic and hysterically funny. His subject matter is similar in many ways to that of Todd Solondz (suburban alienation) but whereas Solondz uses his characters as pawns in a callous scheme of personal degradation, Korine allows actors to express feeling, making his films far more realistic and believable. Werner Herzog is truly...beguiling (for want of a better word) as Julian's insane father. If you like this, I recommend you check out Korine's book, A crack up at the race riots which opens on a picture of MC Hammer, age 12. Showing reviews 1-5 of 11 1 2 3 Next »

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