As an attempt to approximate the paranoid-schizophrenic mind, this film nearly works. Combinations of grainy, blurry, bleached footage, awkward cuts, disjointed edits, and Bremner's shell-shocked performance are assaultive. But Korine's weirdo fetish and bizarre casting of many who serve little purpose other than to be shocking or show off his influences (convince me Herzog's presence is more than just an ego stroke) overwhelm the good, resulting in little more than a pretentious vanity project.

mmm, chloe sevigny playing harp.

Herzog is the best part of this movie.

Sad and beautiful.

If you ever grew up in a "white trash" region of America you can instantly connect with Korine's films. He's always managed to capture the bizarre imagery and mood, this film is no exception. There is a feeling that he does go slightly off the rails with the editing and scenes. With every scene that doesn't work there's 3 more that make you think or laugh. How can you argue with seeing a teenage boy wrestle a plastic trash bin with a fatherly Werner Herzog egging him on?

Werner Herzog really elevates this over Gummo.

"Uninsightful and empty."

There are about 4 or 5 scenes in this film that are fantastic, even amazing but the rest of the film is a real stinker. Herzog and Bremner were fantastic and some scenes really were beautiful; sad, funny, dramatic, it had it all...for a little while. The lo fi aesthetic didn't reallt bother me but the choppy editing and slack directing really drag this down.

So, we've got blind people, a black albino doing a rap song, an armless drummer, a guy doing cigarette-gulping tricks, a random assortment of improvised scenes where the participants were apparently just told to act strange, and we've got Werner Herzog tacked on because he liked Korine's debut, and he's trying to act. Honestly, this was hugely disappointing to me. None of the eccentricity that worked in Gummo works here at all. JDB just seems like Korine was rushing to make a second feature.

Leave your brain at the door before you see this one, because all you'll need is your heart. 'Julien Donkey-Boy' seems to stir up emotions that can't be discovered through other films; it's sad, joyful, awkward, disappointing, aching, hilarious, humane, disgusting, weird, all at the same time, more often than not. It can also be said that Werner Herzog plays what is possibly my favourite movie character ever.

A difficult film for good reasons. Inspired by the real life uncle of Harmony Korine, a schizophrenic, the film has an abstract structure which is hard to grasp at first but is completely immersive. The actors and their performances are the highlight; not only is seeing Chloë Sevigny and director Werner Herzog have great performances fantastic, but Ewen Bremner does one of the best I have ever seen as the schizophrenic title character.

Herzog was great, interesting imagery from ADM, the film itself seems a little over the top, for the sake of being "over the top", sometimes. Not always. The ending in particular seemed that way.

The dissonant, lo-fi video aesthetic is pushed quite far here, and there are some scenes that make a strong impression. The main narrative, however, and the melodramatic concluding scenes, were to my mind contrived, overwrought and unconvincing attempts at audience manipulation. This is in my view far below "Gummo."

Restless, crass and quite unpalatable. A few sequences are moving and fascinating, but Korine's directionless yelling (with the camera and the editing) eclipse the potentially interesting content; the film becomes a frustrating mess - and snap when it should speak softly. The shaky camera makes Julien Donkey-Boy quite a horrible experience.

Funny, I was going to say how this is visionary but then noticed it already said so in the summary. Well there you go. You can't go wrong with this film. Herzog is hilarious in it, the direction is great and it says a lot. A classic dogme film from an amazing, daring director.

The characters are tragic as usual, but what makes this a standout are the one or two lighter moments (the "black albino" scene, for example) that actually brought a smile to my face, certainly not what I would have expected from Korine. Selective adherence to the Dogme 95 rules gives a refreshing gravity and surreal timelessness to the images onscreen while keeping Korine's directorial persona in check, assuring that the audience pays attention to the characters and not the camera.

I might feel differently about it if I watch it again now, but it's quite unique and depressing, and Herzog's performance is incredibly quotable. "He just BLASTS him away." "A winner doesn't shiver." Man, what a bastard.

the most arrogantly pretentious thing i've ever seen.

Perhaps Korine's most beautiful work, as well as his funniest. Herzog's character is absolutely fantastic. There's still SOMETHING about Gummo that causes me to prefer it, but this isn't far behind.

Probably the saddest shit i've ever seen.