419) Trash Humpers (2009)

419) Trash Humpers (2009) Dir: Harmony Korine Not Yet Released Date Seen: November 28, 2009 Rating: 3.5/5

Redundant as it is, Trash Humpers, idiot savant Harmony Korine's confrontational sensation dares its viewer to wonder, "Well, what's the point?" It's a celebration of cultural junking and of the destruction of utility so technically, that's the wrong question. Follow Korine's naive logic, if you will: because art and the aesthetically beautiful has no use value, it is necessarily grotesque (it's pretty--pretty ugly, that is, ehhhhhhahaha). This makes Trash Humpers, 78 minutes of digital video recordings presented as a VHS found item of young people in old people masks humping trashes and celebrating obsolescence and pointlessness, a defense of itself. Technology is destroyed, trash cans are molested, soap is poured on pancakes and even the utilitarian mantra of "Make it, make it, don't fake it" is chanted and screwed up so many different times and in so many different ways that it all loses any immediate meaning ("Suck it, suck it, don't fuck it" is my favorite variation). There's no payoff because there shouldn't be, because art is technically garbage and refuse is its own reward. As an ardent admirer of Korine's work, I appreciate that kind of crude zeal, even if I feel Trash Humpers is often dull. It's a necessary provocation but he's done it better before.