Trash Humpers

I was really ready for Trash Humpers. As a long standing fan of Harmony Korine, Mr Lonely had left me feeling that he had become somewhat deflated, tired and worn out. Not necessary lost, but certainly stranded in some darker grove of the mangled forest that is commercial cinema. He had dreamt up a wonderland island and tried to take us there, but I just couldn’t follow his fantasy. So when I heard that Trash Humpers was to be playing up at Nottingham’s own Shop, I was eager, pensive and sweaty with a giddiness that can only be described as pungently teenage. Trash Humpers looked like Korine, it smelt like it, and it had all that gooey non-linear juiciness which might just peel off a film which was good and ripe. In short, I was keen. I took along with me two friends and a big bottle of the cheapest, foulest port wine I could find and I was ready.
 

The film was introduced by a local short film by David Alexander Smith called In The Meadow which was a mesmerising combination of terror and bliss. Following a surreal afternoon stuffed with dread in the quaint English countryside, the film manages to capture that essential British quality; the enjoyment of idyllic rural lifestyle with the realisation that ultimately we are all adulterous cowards or sadist mimes at heart. The film was supported by the Film Council, a thing soon to be found only in celluloid history. These are dark times for us broke filmmakers indeed, so please support Shop’s online campaign to fight for it -  the UKFC was made to support such fantastic films as this.
 

Trash Humpers was inventively presented upon a collection of old broken down TV’s, a nice and vital touch to the showing. After a brief personal message from Korine – filmed exclusively for Shop - the film began as we swigged away waiting to be excited, even stimulated, by elderly men and women attempting to fornicate with bags containing rotten banana peels, split condoms and empty yogurt pots. This was, as the title would suggest, a large part of the film indeed. The film is aesthetically brutal. Shot on VHS, including all manner of wonderful little touches - glitches, warping and “Rew” appearing in the top corner - it is further afield than Korine’s other work such as Julien Donkey-Boy and Gummo. There is very little narrative, as we follow our octogenarians living life ‘free’ and occasionally bludgeoning some poor bastard in a tutu to death with a hammer on the tiled kitchen floor.
 

Trash Humpers left me feeling vacant; not disturbed, shocked or horrified, just a little passive. Afterwards, my friends and I discussed the film and came to several conclusions. First, the film may be a reaction against the big budget attempt of Mr Lonely. Second, it might be a reaction similar to the early Dogme movement and is an attempt to radically distance itself from all ‘phoney aesthetics’. It could be that, as my friend eagerly pointed out, Korine is attempting to mount a sneak attack on his own followers and the hipster culture of ‘love it because you’re told its cool’ by producing something undeniably banal. There is even the chance that the film is screaming out that in a society seemingly bound up with rules, one must radically attack it in all forms, such as taste, substance and style. All of these were possible, yet the problem with all of these is a fairly substantial one: any art form, from the surreal to the Dadaist, realist to impressionistic and avant-garde, should stir something inside you. It is that reaction which leads to the desire to realise the artist’s justification, their ethos or attempt. With Trash Humpers, I felt nothing, so I simply didn’t care.
 
It’s not the experimental nature which is at fault; it is more that it attempting to be something which it’s not. Stripped down VHS doesn’t work as underground or subversive when it takes more work than the now standard home-grown DV. The aesthetic simply hides a film which is overall repetitive and so desperate to appear broken and shattered that it comes across like a child who only drops a glass because he wants you to notice. The film is basically needy and has none of the violent and subtle beauty of JDB and lacks all the wonderful exuberant characterisation within Gummo. In fact, certain elements of Trash Humpers feels like a badly made pastiche of these two films (especially the naked trumpet player, this is just a lesser Gummo joint).
 

If this is the case, then the big joke aimed at either the world of cinema or at fans and critics alike, falls flat. And I am so very saddened to say that I am ultimately indifferent to a film which I had hoped would present that chaotic monotonous beauty which permeates Korine’s prior work. Trash Humpers just left me cold.

Trash Humpers website
Shop website