Gummo
| Gummo | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Harmony Korine |
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| Written by | Harmony Korine |
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| Narrated by |
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| Cinematography | Jean-Yves Escoffier |
| Edited by | Christopher Tellefsen |
| Distributed by | Fine Line Features |
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Release date
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Running time
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89 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.3 million |
| Box office | $116,799 |
Gummo is a 1997 American dystopian art film written and directed by Harmony Korine, starring Jacob Reynolds, Nick Sutton, Jacob Sewell, and Chloë Sevigny. The film is set in Xenia, Ohio, a small, poor Midwestern American town that had been previously struck by a devastating tornado. The loose narrative follows several main characters who find odd and destructive ways to pass time, interrupted by vignettes depicting other inhabitants of the town.
Korine's directorial debut, the film was shot in Nashville, Tennessee on a budget of $1 million. Gummo was not given a large theatrical release and failed to generate large box office revenues. The film generated substantial press for its graphic content and stylized narrative.
A grainy voiced narrator (Solomon) recounts the events of the tornado while disturbing home-movie images play — mostly of the town's people. A mute adolescent boy, known as Bunny Boy, wears only pink bunny ears, shorts, and tennis shoes on an overpass in the rain.
A cat is carried by the scruff of its neck by Tummler, a teenage boy. He drowns the cat in a barrel of water. The film then cuts to a different scene with Tummler, in a wrecked car with a girl. They fondle each other, and Tummler realizes there is a lump in one of the girl's breasts.
Tummler and Solomon then ride down a hill on bikes. The narrator introduces Tummler as a boy with "a marvelous persona", whom some people call "downright evil". Later, Tummler aims an air rifle at a cat. His friend Solomon stops him from killing the cat, protesting that it is a house cat. They leave and the camera follows the cat to its owners' house. The cat is owned by three sisters, two of whom are teenagers and one who is pre-pubescent.
The film cuts back to Tummler and Solomon, who are hunting feral cats. They bring the cats to a local grocer, who intends to butcher and sell them to a local restaurant, and the grocer tells them that they have a rival in the cat killing business. They then buy glue from the grocer, which they use to get high via huffing.
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