A Fairly rubbish film

As a film student I am required to write an essay about the film 'Kids', it was awful, honestly, dont watch it, read my essay instead, it'll only make you cringe a little bit.

It has been stated that, outside of the world of Hollywood blockbusters whose goals are entirely economical, filmmakers have a responsibility to create art which presents an argument, statement or view which would contribute to the knowledge and worldview of its audience. Critically acclaimed films such as Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, which made a statement about the nature of good and evil within human beings, are accepted as good films due to the statement they make.
The film Kids has received a mixed reaction, with some critics praising the film for its ultra realistic depiction of the lives of some modern day adolescents, stating that the film is a ‘wake-up call to the modern world’ while others have labelled it as borderline child pornography. In order to analyse the merits of the film we must investigate what the film is intended to say and how it is executed.
It could be argued that through graphic representation of the lives of its protagonists Telly, Casper and Jennie, the film is intended to create awareness of the activities of some modern day adolescents. This claim could be supported by the fact that the film uses documentary style cinematography in order to create a feeling of realism; there may have been some intention to present the events in the film as though they may have happened, and indeed the audience does come away from the film with a realisation that such things do happen in some aspects of society. The film had the chance to convey a message about the waste of youth in poor, working class society and the responsibility of parents, and society as a whole, to steer their kids away from such behaviour shown in the film. Themes of society’s failings, accidents of birth and economic hardships are very powerful. Had this been done successfully Kids could certainly be considered to be a ‘good’ film. However, due to its rejection of conventional narrative structure, the ambiguity of the films message (if it attempts to make one at all) and the unnervingly explicit nature of the actions shown within the film make it seem notably bad.
While the narrative in A Clockwork Orange sees delinquent Alex DeLarge involved in equally immoral activities, subsequently becoming ‘brainwashed’ in order to explore the themes of goodness and the abuse of liberties, Kids simply stumbles through a representation of an average day in the lives of a group of New York teens, making no attempt to emphasise the lack of any adult role model in the kids lives(the only speaking adult is Telly’s apathetic mother, who smokes while breastfeeding and seems to have no interest in being a parent) the film makes no attempt to explore why the kids act the way they do, where they have been and what has happened to them to provoke such actions. The filmgoer has to be incredibly cooperative to see the good points in Kids.
Whether the film deserves credit in the message we can find in it is questionable. This is because writer Harmony Korine was himself a streetwise kid when he wrote the screenplay and based a number of characters and events on elements of his own life (much like Shane Meadows’ 2007 film This is England which is based mostly on the writers own childhood), Kids therefore is less likely to have been intended as a thought provoking film than it is simply a retelling of real life events, there can hardly be any artistic merit in simply showing us something story worthy.
Larry Clark’s disturbingly lingering style of filmmaking is what has caused much of the controversy, if we wish to give Clark the benefit of the doubt we could say that this was used first to shock and subsequently draw the audience in to the film in order to convey its message. A quick look into Clark’s past however, reveals just how unlikely that is. His previous work in photography included ‘Tulsa’ and ‘Teenage Lust’ which are both little more than still versions of Kids; explicitly exposing young models engaged in immoral actions. It seems unavoidable that rather than a considered style of filmmaking, Kids is little more than an indulgence in a disturbing fetish on the part of the director.
Kids is, in a way, very much like the characters shown in the film. It is foul, explicit and self indulgent. However, by some fluke, Kids does manage to bring a message across to the audience. It seems that, like a pedestrian unfortunate enough to witness the actions of these delinquents, the audience is provoked into thinking about the issues which Kids should have made in order to justify the films existence. It is this which forces the audience to admit that Kids is, in a way, a good film.