Ken Park
| Ken Park | |
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 Promo poster used in festivals |
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| Directed by | Larry Clark Ed Lachman |
| Produced by | Pascal Breton Victoria Goodall |
| Written by | Larry Clark Harmony Korine |
| Starring | Adam Chubbuck James Bullard James Ransone Stephen Jasso Tiffany Limos Maeve Quinlan |
| Cinematography | Larry Clark Ed Lachman |
| Editing by | Andrew Hafitz |
| Distributed by | Vitagraph Films |
| Release date(s) | August 31, 2002 |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | United States Netherlands France |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.3 million |
| Box office | $447,741 |
Ken Park is a 2002 drama film. The screenplay was written by Harmony Korine, who based it on Larry Clark's journals and stories. The film was directed by Larry Clark and Ed Lachman.
The film revolves around the abusive home lives of several teenage skateboarders and their friends, set in the city of Visalia, California.
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[edit] Plot
The opening of the film depicts a teenager casually skateboarding across Visalia, before arriving at a skate park. He sits in the middle of the park, takes a camcorder and a pistol out of his backpack, and commits public suicide. Ken's death is not very relevant in the story; the narrator, Shawn, describes Ken being close to four other teens, which the film follows immediately afterwards:
Shawn: The most stable of the four main characters, Shawn has a strong sexual affair with his girlfriend's mother Rhonda throughout the story. He casually talks and eats with the family, who are unaware of the situation.
Claude: A teen who is almost at the mercy of his violent, alcoholic father while doing his best to take care of his mother. Halfway through the story, his drunken father attempts to give Claude oral sex, which results with him running away from home, which he had previously discussed with his friends.
Peaches: After her highly religious father catches her having sex with her boyfriend, he savagely disciplines her using a religious motive. He sees Peaches as his dead wife; in the end, he forces her to marry him in order to keep her from engaging in any other sexual activities.
Tate: The most savage and unstable of all, Tate lives with his grandparents, and frequently verbally abuses them. Seeing himself as the leader of the household, he brutally stabs his grandfather to death after he supposedly cheated at scrabble, as well as his grandmother for "invading his privacy". He also engages in auto-erotic asphyxiation while masturbating, and admits that after stabbing his grandparents to death, he almost had an erection.
The film jumps between each story throughout the timeline; each opens and is resolved after several intermissions to a different one. Only at the end do the friends meet, where Shawn, Claude and Peaches have a threesome, Tate already being arrested, very proudly. At the very end, the film finally reveals the true motive behind Ken Park's suicide. It turns out that he accidentally got his girlfriend pregnant and, after he asks her whether or not she wants an abortion, to which she responds that she "doesn't want to be a child killer," she asks him if he ever regrets his mother not aborting him. After eventually deciding that he does regret being born, he skates off to commit suicide.
[edit] Cast
- Adam Chubbuck as Ken Park
- James Bullard as Shawn
- James Ransone as Tate
- Stephen Jasso as Claude
- Tiffany Limos as Peaches
- Eddie Daniels as Rhonda's Mother
- Seth Gray as Rhonda's Brother
- Maeve Quinlan as Rhonda
- Patricia Place as Tate's Grandmother
- Amanda Plummer as Claude's Mother
- Wade Williams as Claude's Father
- Julio Oscar Mochoso as Peaches' Father
- Zara McDowell as Zoe
- Richard Riehle as Murph
- Larry Clark as Hot dog vendor
[edit] Production
Clark attempted to write the first script for Ken Park, basing it on personal experiences and people with whom he had grown up. Dissatisfied with his own draft, he hired Harmony Korine to pen the screenplay. Clark ultimately used most of Korine's script, but rewrote the ending.
The film was given a $1.3 million budget. The arrangement was to film using digital video, but Clark and Lachman instead used 35mm film.
[edit] Themes
The film depicts controversial topics such as sexuality, sexual experimentation, incest, teenage suicide and, to a lesser extent, murder. The title "Ken Park" does not refer to a location, but rather to a character in the film, whose death is used as a plot device at the end of the film. Although never directly stated, Ken Park appears to be set over several days, spanning Friday to Sunday. The plot of Ken Park is non-linear, and often switches between different characters over this time period.
[edit] Distribution
Although it was sold for distribution to some 30 countries,[1] the film has not managed to see wide distribution in many, partly due to being initially only popular at film festivals and being banned or having a limited release in several due to its sexual content involving minors.
[edit] Australia
In Australia, the film was banned for its graphic sexual content. In response to the ban, a number of protest screenings were held across Australia, at least one of which, infamously attended by Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz, was shut down by the police.[1] In most capital cities free underground screenings were held with the information about their location being shared via text the night before.
[edit] France
In France, the film was first found unsuitable for children younger than 16. After reevaluation, it was later classified as forbidden for those under 18; as a result, the film was withdrawn from wide release.
[edit] Belgium
In Belgium, the film was not distributed in theatres. On 3 July 2011 at 20.30 h., it was shown on JIM, a Flemish television channel aimed at people aged between 15 and 24. The channel was later fined 12.500 EUR by the Flemish media regulator (VRM) for showing the film unscrambled and too early in the evening.
[edit] New Zealand
In New Zealand, the film was classified R18 and limited to film festival screenings or viewing for a tertiary film studies course.
[edit] United Kingdom
The film was not shown in the United Kingdom after director Larry Clark punched and attempted to strangle Hamish McAlpine, the head of the UK distributor for the film, Metro Tartan. Clark is alleged to have been angry over McAlpine's remarks about 9/11. Clark was arrested and spent several hours in custody, and McAlpine was left with a broken nose.[2]
[edit] United States
The film has never been issued in wide release in the United States. It has not found a distributor since its initial showing at the Telluride Film Festival in 2002.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Police quiz critic after raid By Kirsty Needham, The Age, July 4, 2003. Accessed May 30, 2007
- ^ Article in the BBC Collective
[edit] External links
- Ken Park at the Internet Movie Database
- Inside Film Magazine's Phillip Cenere reports on Australian ban of Ken Park
- Ken Park @ Harmony-Korine.com
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