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Harmony Korine is a blessing to cinema, and is quite possibly my favorite filmmaker of all time.
Gummo is my absolute favorite film of his, and is filled with breathtaking imagery, that seems to literally burn itself into your memory, from start to finish. Harmony masters the combination of rawness, and beauty in his work; and explores the aesthetics of the ugly in such a personal manner, like no other director can.
Harmony wrote Kids when asked by Larry Clark at the stunningly young age of 19 to write a story based on kids his age. The material presented in both films is intriguingly perverse. However, like Ken Park, Kids is a Larry Clark film, and this is very apparent with it's atmosphere.
Julien Donkey-Boy is as equally outstanding of a film as Gummo. This piece focusing much more on ellegance than crudeness. The performances in this film are even more stunning than the ones in Gummo, which audiences often mistook for being real. Werner Herzog is uproarious in his scenes. Following the Dogme 95 contract (only breaking a few minor rules), Harmony executed a very distinct vision of an individual with a multiple personality disorder.
Mister Lonely is the most traditional of all of his works, and therefore showcases a few of Harmony's weakpoints as a filmmaker. However, it is by no means a bad film. It's runtime occupies two seperate stories: one about an island full of celebrity impersonators; and another with lots, and lots of nuns jumping out of planes, and Werner Herzog. It is a true work of fantasy, and faith.
I just wish his film 'Fight Harm' could've been finished. It was a documentary in which he would aggrivate all sorts of people to the point of fighting him. Now, if you've ever seen Harmony...he's not the biggest of guys, to say the least; and had to quit the project after receiving too many substansial injuries, and running up his medical bills.
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