I saw TRASH HUMPERS at a screening in L.A. where Harmony Korine was there to introduce it and also do a Q&A afterwards.
I was wildly disappointed with the lame array of questions that were thrown at him. Probably 90% were brainless, pointless, and uninteresting.
The question I wanted to ask him was "is Trash Humpers in any way a statement or mockery on TRASH ART in general?".
To me, this is how the movie came across. With a name like Trash Humpers, what else can you expect? It is one of the most pointless and trashiest movies I have ever seen - but that is exactly what I came for, and it effectively delivered that.
It's full of humping, cussing, assorted offensive jokes, violence, vandalism, religion bashing, and anything else you'd expect in a trash art film. The difference is that with most trash art, the point is to try to shock you, scar you, or offend you. Trash Humpers, to me, seems more like it's doing these things in such a way that it's all a big joke - to take all of the other movies that have already done it, and re-enact them while giggling.
After all, I feel that movies really are coming to a point where it is nearly impossible to shock people through exploitative sex, violence, etc. So why not find a nice comfortable place where we can live in that kind of world for an hour and a half and not try to shock anyone? We can just float through it and accept this demoralized joke of a world - that's the world that Trash Humpers creates to me.
Unfortunately, when you start mocking your own genre or personal style of art, along with that comes the instinctive drive to take it to a far enough level where you are pushing people away. I felt that with several obnoxious things repeating throughout the film (such as Harmony's character constantly YELLING in your ear through entire scenes from right behind the camera) - he was showing signs of this kind of behavior. This is something I have observed from my own experiences as part of artistic projects, as well as observing friends mocking their own work. I have watched this kind of behavior occur with a lot of people towards the end of their artistic cycle.
Of course, my interpretation of the movie could be completely off from how Harmony sees it. But, it's nice to have different perspectives isn't it? I enjoyed it - especially the fact that I got to see it in a theater with Harmony in attendance. But, I don't know if I'd ever want to watch it again. We'll always have Gummo for those endless viewings...
