Larry Clark's Kids came blazing out of 1995 smelling like forbidden fruit. You know the stories by now. The film received the NC-17 rating from the MPAA despite the fact that it had no nudity and little actual sex or violence. The Disney-owned Miramax could not release it with an NC-17 rating so they formed a separate company, Shining Excalibur, exclusively for its distribution and brought it out without a rating. It was strongly recommended that those under the age of 18 do not see the film and for adults to use caution. Before the film, my VHS copy flashes a warning saying "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content.” It is exactly the same warning that you see on CDs. As they say in the comic strip "Zits,” it's part of the cover art. When I first heard about Kids it was in a hotel room in California. My dad was taking my sister and me to Disneyland. My curiosity was piqued, to say the least. This film was a collection of sights and sounds that I would have to wait to experience. When I gained totally unrestricted access to my father's membership card to the non-Blockbuster affiliated Video Vern's in Salt Lake, you can bet your ass that this was one of the first films that I rented.

The idea that a film has the power to be controversial or obscene is really exciting. I view it as a challenge. It is so easy for movies to be benign and sanitary. You realize that, at the very least, nine out of ten of all movies will not leave any substantial residue. When you find one that is aiming to "shock you" and "wake you up,” it's really a cause for celebration. Larry Clark has been accused of being sensationalistic. Of trying to rile up attention and controversy, much of which is unearned. These complaints are probably accurate, but are nonetheless meaningless. When a filmmaker stops trying to cause any sensation, or rile up any attention or controversy, well then, and only then, do I get really pissed. Call it exploitation; that is after all what it is. But at least these exploitation filmmakers aren't pissing away the experience of making a film.

I remember reading an interview with Pauline Kael where she says that she doesn't like all these action movies like The Rock, but she sees movies like The Sweet Hereafter as being sort of placating. They won't offend their audiences, but they won't really stimulate them either. I remember thinking that her choice of Sweet Hereafter as representing those sort of films was rather curious. But the more that I think about it, the more it makes sense. Look at how Atom Egoyan represents drug addiction and incest. It's so tasteful and distant. I did not, at any point, really think that he knew what the fuck he was talking about. Egoyan is making a film about loss, emptiness and sorrow. And yet Kids touches those experiences to a degree that Egoyan is never able to grasp. I like The Sweet Hereafter more than Armageddon and Pearl Harbor (but not as much as The Rock), but I'm still thinking that good taste and restraint are decidedly un-cinematic traits. I think that Kids has a real power. Even more importantly, I think that the experience is more truthful. I don't want it to sound like I am saying that Kids is an "important film,” as it has been marketed and as many of its defenders have praised it. I think that I watch it because I sort of almost enjoy the experience. Not because I need an education.

The final image in the film is of one of the film's villains waking up, hung over, and looking into the screen to say, "Jesus Christ. What happened?" A sad folk song then plays on the soundtrack. It's a thesis question. The film seems to be asking for us to develop some sort of sociological theory towards what is going on. It's tempting. Kids have been having sex and getting high for some time now. I suppose that there was once a time when they were believing that they were hip to some vision for a greater future. You know, that we could eliminate war, hunger, racism and bad feelings. And Kids shows us that the youth of America is without a future, or for that matter a plan or a vision. Larry Clark's book “Tulsa” came out in 1971. A quick browse shows that American youth never had a plan, vision or future. Larry Clark has been saying the same thing for thirty years. The only place that there has ever been to go was the bottom. When Kids came out people noticed that there weren't any parents. The new Larry Clark film Ken Park is said to include the exact same sort of kids and their parents. We can't really look at these people in terms of economic class or race. Those terms and lines don't really exist. It really needs to be said that politically, this nigga's shit is wack, yo. Clark doesn't offer any solutions, or really states a problem.

Roger Ebert states at the end of his review: "You watch this movie, and you realize why everybody needs whatever mixture of art, education, religion, philosophy, politics and poetry that works for them: Because without something to open our windows to the higher possibilities of life, we might all be Tellys, and more amputated than the half-man on his skateboard." Now that I like. It doesn't say that there is something wrong with our children, or that Clark is really making a statement about our children. He's using our children to get to a point about ourselves. He's showing a civilization void of culture, God or, well, civilization. Human beings are reduced to their basest instincts and drives. Larry Clark isn't just a moralist, it seems, he's also almost a theist. God, or whatever replacement that we find that completes a similar function, gives our lives purpose and meaning. The characters in Kids haven't any purpose or meaning. Keeping with Roger Ebert's view of Kids, I know for a fact that he is a very adamant defender of the concept of evolution and really thinks that the creationists are wrong. The creationists argue that the concept of evolution means that we are no better than monkeys. Ebert seems to think that they are missing the point. Evolution means that you ARE better than monkeys. That's why they call it evolution, because you have evolved. Not only have you evolved, but you will continue evolving. Ebert says that he finds the concept optimistic. I do too; the more that I think of creationism, the more I realize that it de-emphasizes moral choice. God has made me exactly like he wants and I can't strive for anything better. You know, as a theologian, Roger Ebert can really be a great thinker.

Perhaps, under creationism, my moral behavior is resultant on keeping myself the way that God had made me. That seems to be the message in the Adam and Eve story. God doesn't only forbid scientific discovery and inquiry (eating from the tree of knowledge), he punishes it. I find that sort of depressing, and I think that I would continue to prefer the evolution argument. Doom seems to be a constant theme in Kids. It seems that these characters have become far removed from how God has made them and thus it doesn't look like they have anything left to look forward to but Hell. There is an implication that they aren't going to be evolving anytime soon either. I think that it is in this aspect that Kids is justified in using teenagers. It emphasizes the perversion of God's handiwork. And it emphasizes that they have not evolved into men. They are in a perpetual monkeyhood, and it seems do not have the tools to go beyond monkeyhood. (Watch how the teens in the film are entirely without shame. They freely urinate, copulate and vomit in each other’s company, largely without comment. There is one scene where one boy tells someone to close the door while he has sex with his girlfriend, but it seems to be more because she is nervous and he wants the experience to go smoothly.) Truth be told, I think the film could be interpreted either way, even though the message is distinctly different. Is Clark saying that these teenagers should just grow up or should they should go back to being kids?

My father hated this movie, based on what he has seen of it. He turned it into a lesson. These people are miserable because they aren't doing anything to change their condition. He hadn't any sympathy towards them. It's a valid view. Whether or not they were created by the hand of God or they are monkeys that ought to be men, they SHOULDN'T be doomed to their status. Again, I guess that I view the film all for effect. You get caught up in its vision of hopelessness, even if it seems to be all bellyaching. I also like that Dad is reacting to and dismissing the view that our children are all doing drugs and having sex, and it is our fault or the fault of society that they are doing this. And something needs to be done. Dad views them as people who have free agency to make up their own lives. Again, I don't think that the film works as a document of what is happening with teens today. For one, it is not very accurate; for two, Clark doesn't have any real solutions; and even more importantly, for three, I think that Dad has a really good point. We don't really have any reason to feel sorry for them. Where I think that Kids is particularly successful is simply as a portrayal of a culture that hasn't purpose or meaning. It needn't be applied to the now, as much as the human experience in a timeless sense. You need to reduce it beyond the surface of social commentary.

Kids is a minimalistic film. Clark shot on location with untrained non-actors. You often can't hear what the characters are saying. They are talking over the sound of the city, and often times they are talking over each other. There is a plot to the film, but there are a number of scenes that just exist by themselves. There are conversations that we do not need to see, but we see anyway simply because they happen and you can't plan for them. Aside from "Casper the Friendly Ghost," the film does not seem to include any literary or cinematic, hell, cultural reference points. It seems to be made from whole cloth. Kids has been said to have a documentary-like feeling to it, especially by people who hate it or think that it is a disgusting film. That is of course, all part of the feeling. There are moments in here that remind of Pasolini's Salo, Haneke's The Piano Teacher, Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage and Cries and Whispers, Scott's Alien, Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, and the vastly underappreciated Blair Witch Project. It's blunt, like some sort of fact. It doesn't massage you like other films; it's just there and you have to deal with it. There is something hollow and empty about it. Kids is a sort of void. The film produces a sort of euphoria of tragedy. There is something so clear about the feeling. It's not painful as much as it's numbing. That numbness. There is something distinctly exhilarating about it. There isn't anything logical about it.

Despite the fact that I said that there is nothing particularly topical about Kids, much of its power comes out of the fact that Clark is trying to shock you with his images. When it comes to sex, the film has a sort of Reefer Madness aspect to it. Sex is hardly ever fully consensual. The only intercourse on screen that we see is of the character Telly deflowering his latest conquest. Telly has a fetish for deflowering virgins. It's symbolic of his hatred for childhood (Creationist reading), and his preference of gratification over spirituality (Evolutionist reading).We then get the girl screaming in pain, while her scrawny lover is convulsing in ecstasy. Telly wears socks to bed. It would play like a joke if the context were not so horrifying. After he is finished with her, he falls asleep with her exhausted. Clark emphasizes his nudity, which is extremely unappealing, and lets her sleep on her back. By making her appear less sexual, it emphasizes that her purity and holiness has been destroyed. She is now to be a corpse, passively cowering under Telly's gruesome thigh. People don't just kiss in this movie, they devour one another.

Needless to say, there is nothing erotic about the sex in this movie. Clark films it in a cold fashion that makes it look like something out of a horror movie. Clark seems to want to supplement and encourage sexual repression. He makes sex look filthy. This still makes Larry Clark a sick bastard, but it excuses him from getting off on what he is showing us. I don't think that he is getting turned on by this. The film’s final sex scene is between Jenny, who Telly has recently given the HIV virus, and Telly's friend Casper. It is an extremely long scene. Clark lingers. The lingering certainly does not make the scene more titillating. But it does make it more painful. Or at the very least much more uncomfortable. Clark juxtaposes Telly's seduction of his newest victim with footage of his previous conquest Jenny staring out of a taxi window crying. This is one of the few times where Clark acts as a director as opposed to a documentarian. The effect is extremely crude, but it maintains that hollowness and despair. It's effective and haunting all the same.

The last line of Kids always manages to startle me. I cannot interpret it in any way other than as a thesis question, but that does not ever diminish the power that it has over me. I've come to the conclusion that I shouldn't have to explain it away. I should just let it shock. In a sense I suppose that Kids is really effect without meaning. It's funny, I think that I agree with critics who say that this is not a wake-up call to the world, and it is a sensationalistic and rather sleazy sideshow. But the thing is, I like that, and I feel that it has value to me as a filmgoer. Clark's vision of a universe that is disaffected by God does not necessarily jibe with the actual state of things, and there are problems with his argument. But it never ceases to fascinate. At the end of Kids, you feel like throwing up no matter what you tell yourself intellectually.