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The Movie:
Harmony Korine enjoyed modest success as the writer of the controversial teen film "Kids", which gained an NC-17 upon its theatrical release. Afterwards, he went on its own and became a director of movies that offered escalating strangeness, from "Gummo" to "Julien Donkey Boy", the later of which uses the "Dogme 95" method of filming - only available light, etc.
The result is a film with characters that are completely uninteresting - and hard to see, on top of that. The film stars the otherwise excellent Ewen Bremner("Trainspotting") as Julien, a 21 year old who's mentially unstable, usually carrying on conversations with no one in particular and doing some rather gross things on occasion (Korine's films occasionally enjoy being "shocking".) His father isn't the nicest person (German director Werner Herzog) and his sister (Korine's girlfriend Chloe Sevigny) finds herself pregnant. Much of the film involves arguements between the family, and watching Julien turn sicker and sicker.
Like any film, I certainly want to attempt to engage myself in the story and characters. Korine makes that difficult or almost impossible here, by making the footage into a grainy blur; much of the film almost looks abstract enough to likely be considered some other form of art, but as filmmaking, it's too much - it takes away from any story this film is trying to tell. I'm not completely negative on the film, which makes its "look" even more irritating. The director has an interesting story (from what I could tell) at hand, and a very strong cast. What is the need to present it this way?
The DVD
VIDEO: I'm all for creative and artistic means of filming a movie, but "Julien Donkey Boy" takes things a little too far. It's what I would call "agressively grainy" (I found "The Blair Witch Project" easier to watch - much), where it almost looks as if the grain is trying to rise up against the movie. I've heard this film was shot on digital video, but it looks more like eight millimeter. I'm sure that New Line has done the best they possibly could with this material, but it simply is hard to even watch at times, due to Korine's insistance that this be the look of the picture.
Sharpness and detail - well, the picture looks soft the majority of the film and I often had a hard time making out detail in the picture. Where the "Dogme" film "Mifune" looked absolutely gorgeous and still followed the rules, Korine simply looks as if he's experimenting here and playing around with the possibilities. Occasionally, he comes up with a rather enjoyable looking image, but for every decent bit of presentation (Pearl walking through a field), there's several other scenes that are hard to even watch. Colors are all over the map, looking pale and murky in some scenes and bolder in others. At the end of the day though, New Line has presented "Julien Donkey Boy" in the way that it was intended to look.
SOUND: "Julien" is presented in stereo, and the sound is about equal to the picture quality. Clarity varies throughout, but for the most part, the act of watching "Julien" involves coming even closer to the screen to attempt to hear what the characters are saying. Dialogue sounds slightly clearer in some instances than others, but for the most part, it has a rough quality.
MENUS:: Although menus are not animated, the bleak, film-themed images that make up the backgrounds are somewhat effective.
EXTRAS:
Confessions Of Julien Donkey Boy: This is a nicely done 15 minute documentary about the making of the film. Offering interviews with Korine as well as the main actors, we are offered some behind-the-scenes footage as well as information about Korine's uncle, who suffers from schizophrenia, as well.
Also: 2 deleted scenes, trailer.
Final Thoughts:
Positive: New Line has at least attempted the best they could do with the audio/video quality of the movie - in terms of picture quality, this is an anamorphic presentation of the film. Although not a "special edition" fans can at least enjoy the documentary and the deleted scenes.
Negative: "Julien Donkey-Boy" is definitely not for everyone, myself included, apparently. Although I didn't hate it, I didn't enjoy it either. Still, for those who found the film interesting to watch, New Line provides a respectable DVD release.
Film Grade
The Film * 1/2
DVD Grades
Video 75/C = (300/400 possible points)
Audio: 75/C = (300/400 possible points)
Extras: 75/C = (225/300 possible points)
Menus: 75/C = (150/200 possible points)
Value: 80/B- = (240/300 possible points)
TOTAL POINTS:1215/1600
DVD GRADE:C/75%
FILM GRADE: * 1/2
DVD GRADE: C
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