Ken Park is Larry Clark's second collaboration with Harmony Korine, following the success of Kids in 1995. Although it does not match the continuing social relevance of Clark's controversial debut, Ken Park does merit viewing. Returning to themes that can be found in his earlier photography work like Tulsa, Clark presents an extremely unsettling image of a skateboarding subculture struggling to overcome the monotony of their existences. By exploring the lives of a group of troubled teenagers and their dysfunctional backgrounds, Clark offers an insider's look into a community troubled by sexual abuse. Beginning with a suicide in the middle of a skate park, it then charts the lives of four different people who knew the individual who killed himself. Whilst there are moments of dark comedy to alleviate the bleak mood, this is mostly a painful study of fractured human relationships and bad parenting.
Struggling to acquire distributors for the film, Ken Park has permanently situated Clark outside of the mainstream film community. As before with Kids, Clark's intentions have been deemed suspect because of the film's explicit nature. In addition to this unfortunate assumption, Ken Park is sometimes wrongly labelled as 'pornographic' and although there is, admittedly, a voyeuristic aspect to the director's style, this cinema vérité approach is necessary when considering the context of his work. Clark is offering viewers a chance to see the unseen side of teenage life and gain an insight into the roots of moral corruption prior to adulthood. Many viewers are often bothered by Clark's lack of overt condemnation towards the decadent lifestyles of the characters in his films, but I feel this misses the point, as it is not for the director to be some kind of moral crusader; it is for him to execute his artistic vision. Providing viewers are aware of the challenging nature of Ken Park's content and are willing to watch it with an open mind, they might end up finding a highly perceptive vision of alienated American youth.
Struggling to acquire distributors for the film, Ken Park has permanently situated Clark outside of the mainstream film community. As before with Kids, Clark's intentions have been deemed suspect because of the film's explicit nature. In addition to this unfortunate assumption, Ken Park is sometimes wrongly labelled as 'pornographic' and although there is, admittedly, a voyeuristic aspect to the director's style, this cinema vérité approach is necessary when considering the context of his work. Clark is offering viewers a chance to see the unseen side of teenage life and gain an insight into the roots of moral corruption prior to adulthood. Many viewers are often bothered by Clark's lack of overt condemnation towards the decadent lifestyles of the characters in his films, but I feel this misses the point, as it is not for the director to be some kind of moral crusader; it is for him to execute his artistic vision. Providing viewers are aware of the challenging nature of Ken Park's content and are willing to watch it with an open mind, they might end up finding a highly perceptive vision of alienated American youth.
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