Trash Humpers (2009)

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Dir. Harmony Korine

United Kingdom-USA

I am able to count the years that I have been a cineaste on only one hand, yet I have already felt concerns about my engagement with cinema. This is not a suggestion I may grow tired of this hobby, a silly notion for me not only because it is too ingrained into me to watch films, but there are still many films I haven’t seen yet that may surprise and awe me, from the past to the future ones yet made.  What concerns me is the change in my thoughts, fed by slowly reading more film magazines, articles and books about the questions facing cinema in the 21^st century and alternative viewpoints on film. I have realised my own personal taste in film has started to change, and that I need to push it further instead of having the vague beliefs I have now. I have become less interested in mainstream cinema to the point that even highly praised films, that I do want to watch, may not have enough pull for me to see them in the cinema still (it usually is a random whim now, not an urge to, whether to go to the multiplex or not; the only real exception this year was probably Tom Ford’s A Single Man (2009)). Also add to this that I have missed the bandwagon for many popular fan bases; born in 1989, things like the original Star Wars Trilogy and its cult following passed over my head, while I accidently missed fan bases that developed while I grew up either not knowing about them or ignoring them for something that interested me more. That is not to say I will still ignore mainstream films, I may even fall in love with a few as much as their fans do, but I feel my interests feel far more left of field if I were to prod and stimulate my thoughts more. I have started this review with this statement because I feel Trash Humpers, an incredibly divisive film, exemplifies this changing state of mine I am having, still interested in traditional types of film and media, but drifting with deepening interest with experimentation and bending of traditional structures. Despite having not seen many highly regarded classics of cinema, I am usually drawn more towards everything else than them.

The premise of Trash Humpers, as the director has described, is what would happen if a beaten-up VHS tape was found, turning out to be a home video by ‘trash humpers’, a group of elderly misfits who spend their days humping random public property, destroying various objects, and committing even extremer acts without any moral and conscience that society says people should have. The concept of a videotape, good or bad, that showed you a part of society you would probably never see is an interesting idea, one that has some legitimacy for me as it happened to someone I know. For privacy sake, and because I have only heard it as an old story from them, I will only say they found a VHS in a countryside ditch that turned out to be possible S&M pornography. From pornography of any kind – hetreo, gay, fetish, take your pick with varying production values – a personal home video, even a videotape which has recorded so many programs and films off television that their recorded ghosts blur into each other like a freakish version of Jean-Luc Godard’s Historie(s) du Cinema (1988-1998), there is an allure for me about discovering an unknown VHS, or any format of video, and what one may see if it was played. Trash Humpers can also qualify as part of the found footage sub-genre with Cloverfield (2008) and Diary of the Dead (2007), but instead of being bogged down with trying to weave a narrative plot through the concept like those particular two films do, this was designed to be a random collection of images recorded by miscreants.

This is the first film by Korine’s I’ve seen. As what it is supposed to be, according to its premise, it is a failure. As a ‘found’ film it eventually becomes far too weird and wacky to pass off as realistic the moment two men called Mac and Plac, connect by the heads by what appears to be a giant woman’s stocking and only wearing hospital garb, appear. It is also in danger of only being viewed as a Jackass-like series of skits by most of its potential viewing audience, not looking beyond its surface and considering if anything can be taken from it (even Jackass deserves some thought about it as well, as does any film, as well as be entertainment). In the end, maybe all Korine wanted to do, also playing one of the humpers along with his wife, was to muck about like a complete tit. However for a failure it has managed the rarest of feats of leaving one, or maybe just I and a couple of film critics, with many thoughts and ideas to think about after seeing it. This feat, from a man who, to exaggerate a bit for comedic effect, had the magician David Blaine film him picking fights from people and getting his head kicked in when he was younger, is one of those moments where farmyard swine have grown wings and metaphorically starting flying up in the clouds. If Harmony Korine did want to make the viewer think about what he has made, he has exceeded completely for this viewer.

Trash Humpers, while descending into weirdness for the sake of weirdness, is still able to pull you into a new perspective of the world through this motley group of individuals on the extreme fringe of America. His attitude to these characters is balanced, not demonising them but leaving in moments with a vibe of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre film. At one hand, it is a celebration of chaos where one cannot help but have sympathy for the humpers in their ability to do whatever they desire, personified in the poem of a man (who happens to be in a dress) suggesting that not only are they the result of society,, but are a superior successor to people who are stuck in modern society and its pointless materialism and rules. At the end, you actually feel sadness and sympathy for one of them. However as I have said, they are violent in a psychopathic way, depending on what they feel like doing at any moment. They do acts just for the sake of it, ones that one may find funny and wish they had the courage to do in reality, and some that are repulsive. The vibe of the video footage also shifts between moods. One scene, of something laid in a heap in the long grass while the person recording it is singing a ‘bastardized’, repetitious folk song to himself is possibly one of the most unnerving scenes I’ve seen in a while.

With scenes taking place on the back passages behind buildings, under a bridge and in deserted homes, this manages to be one of only a few films that depict part of America in an honest and realistic light, even more so than more ‘credible’ A-list dramas. This also applies to the materials inside these places, from the lamp posts and hydrants on street corners, to the cheap, manufactured plastic consumer goods such as lawn furniture and toy dolls. Whether depicting the working or affluent middle class (usually the latter) a lot of films I have seen from North America seem to ignore the smaller details and even the look of an area in their gloss and dramatic stories. Here, with no real narrative, it is the small details, part of the environment Korine filmed in and what was brought with him and his cast that are the central interest.

The VHS itself adds to this detail. While I glad for the improvements DVD gave to home viewing of films, it is amazing to me how quickly, and ungracefully, VHS tape was dropped and disposed of in its last years from public. Now the only places I see them in are discount and second-hand charity stores, almost swept under the carpet despite the great influence it had. Having now seen the format used as it has been in this film, a part of me hopes someone else, a well regarded director taking a huge risk or a person off the street inspired by this film, has the idea to make another film using videotape and release it to public in some form. Korine uses the format to his advantage; the film is not beautiful by current standards, which celebrates high definition and CGI, but this has a far more interesting visual look in its dated and worn portrait of images. With its blurry, ghost-like effect, it adds an enticing, mysterious effect which makes it almost dreamlike, and more unsettling, as well as furthering the realism of shooting in real life streets that the central individuals don’t. There are moments, when the camera is directed at a bright artificial light, that suddenly become beautiful and artistically striking, exceptionally muddy images that yet give the film a texture visually that supports the potentially juvenile subject. Any format used to make films is able to make striking image if the director considers how to use it properly, something which Korine takes to the extreme and succeeds to the point this viewer has reconsidered his view on VHS.

In the end, the reasons for me praising the film as highly as I have are for its details and what they make me think about. As a film that will divide people, I would not be surprised if this ends up on a lot of worst of 2010 lists and I completely understand anyone who does include it. What makes it more than pointless trash to me and one of the best films to be released in the United Kingdom this year is that it takes a unique and risky idea and, despite failing up to the premise, succeeds instead in creating a reaction which starts from unease, and bafflement, to considering what Korine’s intentions were and how it alters from traditional filmmaking, from its transgressive nature to subverting what a film should be. This film allowed me to bring ideas to it, beyond random acts of tap-dancing and the fellating of tree branches and twigs, that have made it stimulate me far more than most films could. It is a good thing it exists, a shot in the arm to a medium which has a tendency to get complacent and generic. The best way to end this personal review is to add that I saw this film at the cinema with my older brother, who usually watches films at the multiplex. As we walked back to his apartment, staying over for a night and day, we ended up in a debate over how it portrayed child abuse, from a young boy bashing in the head of a doll repeatedly with a hammer to events later on it the film, which he objected to greatly. This debate about what should be portrayed in film and how eventually became a debate on whether the film was the reason for this discussion being brought up, when it hadn’t before at any other time, and whether that made the film far better than most others. Of course, what could lead to this sort of debate depends on many factors, where and when you see a film like this, who you see it with, and whether you see it with someone or on your own, but the fact that this discussion happened with this film has made me view the film deeper than I might of. I have almost forgotten a lot of serious dramas with serious messages, but the memory of this, added to by multiple viewings that will take place, has buried it into my thoughts. That night with my brother, I joked that somewhere, in the English city of Sheffield and its vast sprawling urbanscape, someone was humping garbage. That I suddenly thought afterwards that wasn’t as ridiculous a notion as it should have been, and for me could have been true as the result of the film’s effect on me, gives it great significance for me. This review may be completely disagreed with by others, and maybe by you the reader, but this had an effect on me that few films have ever had and for that I applaud Harmony Korine for making a one-off this fascinating.