From
a comic cop to a murderer who works in a blind hospital:
schizophrenia's been the subject of two very different
films in the past fortnight.
But whereas goonish Jim Carrey
played and failed for laughs in Me,
Myself and Irene, lanky Ewen Bremner portrays
the illness with amazing clarity in Harmony Korine's
julien donkey boy.
The film opens in a frosted wood, with Julien (Bremner)
viciously attacking and killing an anonymous boy.
We then cut to him filling in an open grave of leaves
and mulch, reciting the funeral service to reveal
an infatuation with religion and the guilt it stands
for.
He returns to his 'normal' life, working in a home
for the blind and living with his pregnant sister
(Sevigny),
wrestling brother and menacing, overbearing father.
But he can't forget his deed and slowly breaks down:
Bremner stretching emotions to tearing point with
the improvised script.
Shot on hand-held digital cameras julien…
is also awash with texture. At times the film
appears like crinkly old wallpaper, whilst the
colours goes from warm and woozy yellows and reds
to concrete-cold greys and whites.
Director Korine, fêted
as an 'envelope pushing' film-maker, also twists
sounds to create further textures. The sound of
cars on wet roads, echoed shouting in a swimming
pool, bus doors opening and closing, are edited
together to create a stifling claustrophobia –
not unlike the voices in Julien's
head.
As Pearl says in the final scene 'sometimes
I think the world's too loud'. For Julien the
donkey boy, it's deafening.
— Tom Morgan 27.09.00
Check out the official julien donkey-boy
site
here.
Find out more about schizophrenia from the National
Schizophrenia Fellowship.
Where's
the film showing near you? Check Scoot.
Need more movies? Get them all at the Internet
Movie Database. |
