Julien Donkey-Boy

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.

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.

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?

An incredible scatter of provocative moments & unforgettable characters. Korine bypasses all structural rules and builds a masterpiece with fragments from the junkyard - filled with truth, hilarity and devastation. My favourite of his.

Herzog is one bad motherfucker.

Herzog is the best part of this movie.

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 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.

This is less Dogme 95 and more Outsider cinema. It's like a lo-fi album come to life, with the same tragic lyrics with the gargling low quality audio completely remastered and clean.

mmm, chloe sevigny playing harp.

A certain comfort grows from it's abstract, tragic nature. Beautiful pieces that split up it's emotions and yet, frantically connected. Really fixated on how artistically absolute this feels.

Korine's directing evokes cinema verite in its depiction of intertwined broken lives but also feels like a first-person glimpse into Julien's madness as he faces the irony of being the most normal part of his deranged family.

A crip film (as in crip studies) before crip film existed? No one would ever say it, but it's also a neurodivergent film, properly speaking. As the film progresses, Korine gets more and more experimental with his visuals and audio, with the film getting better and better and almost disintegrating as it reaches a tragic crescendo. Not only does it feature Werner Herzog, but the film is Herzogian in theme - for example, 'Land of Silence and Darkness' and 'Huie's Sermon' immediately come to mind.

Maybe makes use of too much lo-fi. Can surreal be a good word in the case? Still, camera well sneaked into the story, HK! And hello mr Herzog!

I really wanted to like this, but I'm honestly having trouble figuring out just how much I hate it.

This grotesque movie cinches it: Herzog is a comedic genius.

Werner Herzog really elevates this over Gummo.

Korine continues his frenzied film repertoire in a surreal schizoid tragedy intertwined with an abusive over-masculine father (Herzog was fantastic.) and a small community of blind students trying to find a niche in a world unsympathetic to the handicapped. The grainy, dissonant, lo-fi aesthetic and adherence to the Dogma 95 guidelines contrived a similitude to a poorly shot home-video with shaky and restless filming. Despite its downcast endearments, gleeful cracks of mirth do occur.

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 really bother me but the choppy editing and slack directing really drag this down.

"You're gonna be a winner. Just don't shiver. A winner doesn't shiver."

There's nothing particularly offensive or bad about this, but it just doesn't do much for me. At least it's got Herzog.

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. Selective adherence to the Dogme 95 rules (the usual bizarro-world music track is absent) keeps Korine's directorial persona in check, assuring that the audience's attention is on what's in front of the camera, not what's behind it.

Sad and beautiful.

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.

Although understandably somewhat overlooked amidst the hype of Korine's self-mythologizing and unfortunate "Dogme 95" tag, this film might very well prove in retrospect to be the last truly great thing he ever did.

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.

Everyone associated with this film needs to be Donkey Punched

Not an easy watch whatsoever. Julien Donkey-Boy gets off to a slow, but beautifully shot, start, introducing the family, but it's around midway that the film becomes a monster of cinematic exercise and of emotion. Korine's second attempt here is so much more concise and gorgeous. There is so much beauty in so many different scenes. Herzog and Bermner are frighteningly perfect in their roles. This was a rough, rough movie, but goddammit, was it something special.

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.

Rewatch [2015]: not the lo-fi masterpiece I'd remembered, and I had to roll my eyes at the Puccini, etc. But there is a certain coherence and authenticity to it, and the haunting formalist aesthetic is incredible in a few scenes [e.g. the scene where Werner Herzog is getting a haircut is gorgeous]. Bremner's absolutely spectacular performance as the titular schizophrenic lead, based on Korine's irl uncle, is honestly too good for the rest of the movie. Ah well. "CARDS UP MY SLEEVES?" lol.

Probably the saddest shit i've ever seen.

Really wonderful movie~ Visually it's just incredible. It took me maybe 10 or 20 minutes to really get into it but I'm very glad I kept watching.