KIDS
A film review by Freddie Elmer Mullins
Copyright 1996 Freddie Elmer Mullins
KIDS IS DEFINITELY NOT CHILDS PLAY
New On Video: Very few movies have the courage to follow through with its convictions when the sledding gets rough. Many of todays films ask harsh questions, but try for a predictable happy ending to the problems they claim to be exposing. Larry Clarks Kids is one of the notable exceptions to this trend.
The story begins with teenager Telly(newcomer Leo Fitzpatrick) taking advantage of his latest teenage sexual conquest. His soothing of the girls fears keys the audience to the fact that Telly is singing an old song. It seems that he has little else in this life, and his sole enjoyment is the taking of a girls virginity. Telly and his friend Casper(Justin Pierce) live from one party, sexual encounter, or taking of drugs to the next. When one of Tellys former conquests, Jennifer(Chloe Sevigny), discovers she is HIV positive, she tracks him all over Manhattan to try to stop him before another virgin is corrupted.
Kids follows Telly & Casper from one vignette to another over a 24-hour period in Manhattan, with the themes of personal gratification, bestiality, and hedonism exhibited to the highest degree. The kids in Kids inhabit a harrowing world of innocence lost with pleasure justifying any means to reach it. Larry Clark has published several famous collections of urban photography, and he has not changed his approach with the quasi-documentary quality found in Kids.
He creates an entire culture for his characters by almost entirely removing any adults from the film. The kids are in their own world, and they are comfortable with it. They understand its subtleties and nuances without having to verbalize anything. They are pressurized containers that spew forth violence, excessive amounts of profanity, or flagrant sexuality. They are a kind of earlier version of Malcolm McDowells Alex in A Clockwork Orange(1971). They exist to please themselves, and no one will stand in their way.
Clark makes no judgments about what these children do, nor does he attempt to ascertain what made them this way. His camera only records the fact that they do exist and are a force to be reckoned. No movie since Abel Ferarras The Bad Lieutenant has examined the dark nature of sexuality and emotional isolation in an urban setting. The use of New York locales also make for an extremely true to life experience, much like The Panic in Needle Park(1971). The viewer never gets the impression that any acting takes place; its just life as usual. (Unrated, 95 minutes, Vidmark Entertainment)
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