KIDS

Rip It Up, Issue 224, 1 April 1996, Page 40

KIDS

Director: Larry Clark

Larry Clark’s first feature is disturbing, make no doubt about it, a film which, if nothing else, alerts its audiences to the creeping dangers of complacency. Kids presents a day in the life of a gang of New York teenagers as they prowl around the streets, skateboards at the ready, their lives a trinity of drugs, sex and violence, beautifully documented in Harmony Korine’s script. And scripted it is, even though the film is imbued with the spirit of a documentary. But this is artful naturalism, perfectly caught through the lens of Eric Edwards’ edgy, hand-held camera — Edwards is the cameraman who lent such a distinctive patina to Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, and Van Sant is executive producer of Clark’s movie. Kids doesn’t offer pat solutions. As for point of view? Well, there just isn’t one. Clark simply pre-

sents his material, as he did with those images of junkies and teenage killers in his earlier photographic folios. In this way, his film is a continuation of a tradition of American documentary photography from Walker Evans through to Robert Frank and Diane Arbus.

If there is any strong point that comes out of Kids’ 90 minutes, it’s about the utter ruthlessness of the male animal, summed up in the brutal sexploits of 17-year old Telly, a self-styled ‘virgin surgeon’, who makes his first score in the opening scene of the movie. These young boys pack hunt, climaxing in the scene where Telly’s chief acolyte, Casper (Justin Pierce), lets loose in a scene of distressing sexual coercion. Telly’s sexual obsession is heightened by the fact he is HIV positive, and the strongest narrative strand of this remarkably free-form film has one of his deflowered virgins (Chloe Sevigny) desperately seeking her seducer. At a time when too many young heterosexuals are unaware of their vulnerability to AIDS, Clark’s film is fearlessly placing this issue into a public and (thanks to Miramax Films) highly publicised arena.

WILLIAM DART