Ken Park is a film by Larry Clark, writer/director of Kids
Ken Park was sort of disturbing, but i found it only slightly disturbing, and then only during the abusive father scenes. I did not find the graphic graphic sex disturbing, except for the choking/masturbation scene, because the kid was really masturbating, and you see everything, including the ejaculation. The sex scenes were also pretty graphic, with the most erections i’ve ever scene in a non-adult film, and more hands on penis action than i’ve seen, either.
Now, it is obvious that the director added alot of the sex to jar you into thinking about these kids’ lives, and add shock value to what they are doing. Since it takes a lot to shock me, he failed in that regard, but i think he succeeded in the big picture, as the average viewer will be shocked (this would have worked better if he hadn’t done it before in previous films such as Kids).
Clark seems to like to make films that have the point that teenagers are trapped and it sucks. He then likes to shock people by showing them lash out. As he does it better than many other, he hasn’t grown tiresome yet.
In this film, we have the main character who is sleeping with his girlfriend’s mom, the kid living with an abusive father, the emotionally immature kid who thinks he’s smarter than everyone and lives with his parents, and the girl living under the thumb of her ultra-religous father.
From these characters, Tate, who lives with his grandparents, is the only one not getting sex, and is also the biggest whiney jerk. He eventually kills his grandparents, for reasons i cannot figure out besides he is just a immature fucktard.
As for Peaches, her father marries her after he catches her having sex. The movie isn’t clear enough for me as to exactly why, if the father then has sex with her, or if the marriage is just to justify his daughter not being a virgin anymore.
And the other characters, they were easier to understand, the main character is just having “what is love?” issues, and the other one just needs to get away from his father, but still recognize that that is his father.
All in all, it was pretty good, but failed to shock me. I would NOT reccommend this movie to the mainstream public, as most would hate it, but those of you who are late teens-twenty somethings who’ve had dead end partws of life can relate to at least some of what transpires.