View source for Ken Park

{{Short description|2002 psychological teen drama film by Larry Clark}}
{{About|a film|the legal case involving a man named Ken Parks|R v Parks{{!}}''R v Parks''}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2024}}{{Infobox film
| name           = Ken Park
| image          = Ken Park.jpg
| alt            = 
| caption        = German festival release poster
| director       = {{plainlist|
*[[Larry Clark]]
*[[Edward Lachman]]}}
| producer       = {{plainlist|
*Kees Kasander
*Jean-Louis Piel}}
| screenplay     = [[Harmony Korine]]
| based_on       = stories and journals by Larry Clark<ref name=Variety/>
| starring       = {{Plainlist|
* [[James Ransone]]
* [[Tiffany Limos]]
* James Bullard
* Stephen Jasso
* Adam Chubbuck
* [[Maeve Quinlan]]
}}
| cinematography = {{plainlist|
*Larry Clark
*Ed Lachman}}
| editing        = [[Andrew Hafitz]]
| studio         = {{plainlist|
* The Kasander Film Company
* Cinéa}}
| distributor    = {{plainlist|
*Vitagraph Films (US)
*[[A-Film Distribution]] (Netherlands)
*[[Pan-Européenne]] (France)
*[[Fortissimo Films]]}}
| released       = {{film date|2002|08|31|[[Telluride Film Festival|Telluride]]|2002|09|10|[[2002 Toronto International Film Festival|Toronto]]|2003|04|03|Netherlands|2003|10|08|France}}
| runtime        = 93 minutes
| country        = United States<br />Netherlands<br />France
| language       = English
| budget         = 
}}

'''''Ken Park''''' is a 2002 [[psychological drama|psychological]] [[teen film]] directed by [[Larry Clark]] and [[Edward Lachman]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ken Park |url=https://whatculture.com/film/17-sex-scenes-that-supposedly-werent-simulated?page=13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727230342/https://whatculture.com/film/17-sex-scenes-that-supposedly-werent-simulated?page=13 |archive-date=2020-07-27 |website=WhatCulture}}</ref> Set in the city of [[Visalia, California]], it revolves around the abusive and dysfunctional lives of four teenagers following the suicide of their mutual acquaintance, the eponymous Ken Park. It was written by [[Harmony Korine]], who based it on Clark's journals and stories. The film premiered at the [[Telluride Film Festival]] on September 10, 2002, but has not been officially shown in the United States since. It was also banned in Australia due to its content.

==Plot==
The [[title character]] Ken Park (nicknamed "Krap Nek": his name [[Anadrome|spelled and pronounced backward]]), is a teenager skateboarding across [[Visalia, California]]. He arrives at a skate park, where he casually sets up a [[camcorder]], smiles, and [[Suicide by shot|shoots himself]] in the temple with a handgun. His death is used to bookend the film, which follows the lives of four other teenagers who knew him.

Shawn is the most stable of the four main characters. Throughout the story, he has an ongoing sexual relationship with his girlfriend's mother Rhonda, whom he tells that he fantasizes about being with while having sex with her daughter, Hannah. He casually socializes with their family, the rest of whom are completely unaware of the affair.

Claude fends off physical and emotional abuse from his alcoholic father, who detests him for not being masculine enough, all while he tries to care for his pregnant mother, who makes little to no attempt at defending him. However, after coming home drunk one night, he attempts to perform [[oral sex]] on Claude, prompting the boy to run away from home.

Peaches is a girl who lives alone with her obsessive and highly-religious father, who fixates on her as the innocent embodiment of her deceased mother. When he catches her having sex with her boyfriend Curtis – whom she has playfully tied to her bed – he beats the boy and savagely disciplines her, then forces her to participate in a quasi-[[incestuous]] wedding ritual with him.

Tate is an unstable and sadistic adolescent living with his grandparents, whom he resents and abuses verbally. He engages in [[erotic asphyxiation|autoerotic asphyxiation]] while masturbating to a video of a woman playing tennis. He eventually [[Senicide|kills his grandparents]], in retaliation for petty grievances, and finds that it arouses him sexually. He records himself on his tape recorder so that the police will know how and why he did it, puts his grandfather's dentures in his mouth, lies naked in his bed, and falls asleep; eventually being found and promptly arrested.

The film cuts frequently between these subplots, with no overlap of characters or events until the end, when Shawn, Claude, and Peaches meet and have a [[threesome]]. In a game of "who am I?" afterward, they refer to an unnamed person they know who is now dead. The film cuts to a [[title screen]], followed by a flashback to before the opening scene. Ken has impregnated his girlfriend and taken a menial job. At the skate park, they discuss whether to abort the pregnancy, and she asks Ken rhetorically if he is glad his mother did not abort him; he does not answer.

==Cast==
* [[Tiffany Limos]] as "Peaches"
* James Bullard as Shawn
* Stephen Jasso as Claude
* [[James Ransone]] as Tate
* Adam Chubbuck as Ken Park
* [[Maeve Quinlan]] as Rhonda
* [[Amanda Plummer]] as Claude's Pregnant Mother
* [[Wade Williams]] as Claude's Father
* [[Julio Oscar Mechoso]] as Peaches' Father
* [[Richard Riehle]] as "Murph" Murphy
* [[Bill Fagerbakke]] as Bob
* Eddie Daniels as Shawn's Mother
* Seth Gray as Shawn's Brother
* Patricia Place as Tate's Grandmother
* [[Harrison Young]] as Tate's Grandfather
* Zara McDowell as Zoe
* Mike Apaletegui as Curtis
* [[Larry Clark]] as Hot Dog Vendor

==Production==
Clark attempted to write the first script for ''Ken Park'', basing it on personal experiences and people with whom he had grown up.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2001 |title=Aggressive Behavior |url=https://filmmakermagazine.com/archives/issues/summer2001/features/aggressive.php |access-date=2024-08-01 |website=Filmmaker Magazine}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Hultkrans |first=Andrew |date=2008-05-12 |title=The Kids Are Alright |url=https://www.artforum.com/columns/andrew-hultkrans-on-ed-lachman-at-bam-188265/ |access-date=2024-08-01 |website=Artforum |language=en-US}}</ref> Dissatisfied with his own draft, he hired [[Harmony Korine]] to pen the screenplay.

Korine explained the writing of the film in a 2005 interview:<blockquote>''Ken Park'' was written right after ''[[Kids (film)|Kids]]'', before we had gotten the financing for ''Kids''. [[Larry Clark]] realized I could write pretty well and that I understood a certain type of vernacular, the teenage vernacular. So he wrote down five things he wanted to see on a napkin in red ink.{{nbsp}}... They were things that he wanted to see. Five images that he wanted to see, and with those images he wanted me to construct a basic narrative, like a certain kind of narrative. I wasn't interested in telling a kind of elliptical narrative, I wanted to deconstruct some stories. At that point, it was written literally right after I wrote ''Kids''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.harmony-korine.com/paper/index/i_kenpark.html|title=Film/Work Index|website=www.harmony-korine.com|access-date=2024-09-06|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230418034331/http://www.harmony-korine.com/paper/index/i_kenpark.html|archive-date=April 18, 2023|df=mdy-all}}</ref></blockquote>

Clark ultimately used most of Korine's script, but rewrote the ending.{{citation needed|date=September 2013}} The arrangement was to film using digital video, but Clark and Lachman used 35mm film instead.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Macnab|first1=Geoffrey|last2=Swart|first2=Sharon|title=FilmCraft: Producing|date=2013|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9781136071171|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T6-TumR2s-YC|access-date=25 January 2016|language=en|format=Ebook}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ken Park |url=https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2003/films/ken-park |access-date=1 August 2024 |website=International Film Festival Rotterdam}}</ref>

==Distribution==
Although it was sold for distribution to some 30 countries,<ref name="aus">{{Cite web |date=2003-07-04 |title=Police quiz critic after raid |url=https://www.theage.com.au/national/police-quiz-critic-after-raid-20030704-gdvzkm.html |access-date=May 30, 2007 |website=The Age |language=en}}</ref> the film was not shown in the United Kingdom after director Larry Clark assaulted Hamish McAlpine, the head of the UK distributor for the film, [[Palisades Tartan|Metro-Tartan]]. Clark alleged that McAlpine had said the [[September 11 attacks]] were "the best thing to ever happened to America" and that Israeli victims of Palestinian suicide bombers "deserved to die." McAlpine denied the accusations. Clark was arrested and spent several hours in custody, and McAlpine was left with a broken nose.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Larry Clark on Ken Park |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A872057 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150422164904/http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A872057 |archive-date=2015-04-22 |access-date=2019-12-22 |website=BBC Collective}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Hoggard |first=Liz |date=November 17, 2002 |title=Too much verité... |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/nov/17/features.review |access-date=October 20, 2015 |work=The Observer}}</ref> The film has not been released in the United States since its initial showing at the [[Telluride Film Festival]] in 2002. Clark says that this is because of the producer's failure to get copyright releases for the music used.<ref>{{cite web |date=2006-09-20 |title=The Nerve Interview: Larry Clark |url=http://www.nerve.com/content/the-nerve-interview-larry-clark |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131227113600/http://www.nerve.com/content/the-nerve-interview-larry-clark |archive-date=2013-12-27 |website=Nerve}}</ref> The film was banned in Australia due to its graphic sexual content and portrayals of underage sexual activity after it was refused a classification by the [[Australian Classification Board]] in 2003.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2003-06-16 |title=Filmmaker defends the 'real' Ken Park |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/filmmaker-defends-the-real-ken-park-20030616-gdgxq7.html |access-date=2024-08-01 |website=The Sydney Morning Herald |language=en}}</ref> A protest screening held in [[Sydney]], hosted by film critic [[Margaret Pomeranz]], was shut down by the police.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2003-07-04|title=We've arrested this film, say police|url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/weve-arrested-this-film-say-police-20030704-gdh1fd.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220218065255/https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/weve-arrested-this-film-say-police-20030704-gdh1fd.html|archive-date=2022-02-18|access-date=2022-02-18|website=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]]|language=en}}</ref>

==Critical reception==
[[Review aggregator]] website [[Rotten Tomatoes]] reports a 46% approval rating with an average score of 4.80/10 based on 13 reviews.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ken Park (2002) |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1173608_ken_park |access-date=1 August 2024 |website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]]}}</ref> Ed Gonzales of ''[[Slant Magazine]]'' noted some redeeming elements in an "otherwise familiar ''[[Kids (film)|Kids]]'' procedural" in which "the parents are all monsters of some kind and there's an excuse for every teenager's bad behavior".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gonzalez |first=Ed |date=30 July 2003 |title=Review: ''Ken Park'' |url=https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/ken-park/ |access-date=2021-03-20 |website=[[Slant Magazine]] |language=en-US}}</ref> Rob Gonsalves of ''eFilmCritic'', wrote that the film "is about people lost in a haze of contempt and despair, trying to wrest some love or relief out of the situation."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gonsalves |first=Rob |title=Movie Review - Ken Park |url=https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8101&reviewer=416 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220204161926/https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8101&reviewer=416 |archive-date=2022-02-04 |access-date=2021-03-20 |website=www.efilmcritic.com}}</ref> Michael Rechtshaffen of ''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]'' described it as "a ragingly controversial feature that makes it very tricky to distinguish between insightful and incite-ful."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rechtshaffen |first=Michael |date=October 2, 2002 |title=Ken Park |work=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]}}</ref> [[Todd McCarthy]] of ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' described it as "Beautifully crafted but emotionally dispiriting and alienating in its insistence on spotlighting only the negative aspects of life".<ref name=Variety>{{Cite web|last=McCarthy|first=Todd|date=2002-09-06|title=Ken Park|url=https://variety.com/2002/film/reviews/ken-park-1200546475/|access-date=2021-03-20|website=Variety|language=en-US}}</ref> Lee Marshall of ''[[Screen Daily]]'' wrote that "Clark, being Clark, pushes things a little too far; so a not entirely constructive tension is set up between the need to show and the desire to shock."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Marshall|first=Lee|date=2002-09-06|title=Ken Park|url=https://www.screendaily.com/ken-park/4010393.article|access-date=2021-03-20|website=Screen Daily|language=en}}</ref>

==Soundtrack==

#[[The Bouncing Souls|Bouncing Souls]] – "[[Maniacal Laughter|Lamar Vannoy]]"
#[[Rancid (band)|Rancid]] – "Antennas"
#[[Gary Stewart (singer)|Gary Stewart]] – "[[Out of Hand (song)|Out of Hand]]"
#[[Tha Alkaholiks]] – "Likwit"
#[[KMD]] – "What a Nigga Know"
#[[Blackalicious]] – "Deception"
#[[Merle Haggard]] – "[[Mom and Dad's Waltz]]"
#[[Black Star (rap duo)|Black Star]] – "Brown Skin Lady"
#[[Jerry Lee Lewis]] – "[[Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues]]"
#[[The Roots]] – "[[Do You Want More?!!!??!]]"
#[[Gary Stewart (singer)|Gary Stewart]] – "Shady Streets"
#[[Quasimoto]] – "Put a Curse on You"
#[[Hank Ballard]] – "Henry's Got Flat Feet"
#[[The Shaggs]] – "Who Are Parents?"

==See also==
* [[Kids (film)|''Kids'' (film)]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{Mojo title}}
*{{IMDb title|0209077|Ken Park}}
* {{rotten-tomatoes|1173608_ken_park}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061109053318/http://www.cenere.com.au/files/articles/pdf/Ken_Park.pdf Inside Film Magazine's Phillip Cenere reports on Australian ban of ''Ken Park''] (archived)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20230422065023/http://www.harmony-korine.com/paper/index/i_kenpark.html Ken Park @ Harmony-Korine.com] (archived)

{{Larry Clark}}
{{Harmony Korine}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ken Park}}
[[Category:2002 films]]
[[Category:2000s erotic drama films]]
[[Category:American erotic drama films]]
[[Category:Dutch erotic drama films]]
[[Category:French erotic drama films]]
[[Category:2000s English-language films]]
[[Category:English-language Dutch films]]
[[Category:English-language French films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Larry Clark]]
[[Category:Films about adultery in the United States]]
[[Category:Films about child sexual abuse]]
[[Category:Films about dysfunctional families]]
[[Category:Films about juvenile sexuality]]
[[Category:Films about incest]]
[[Category:Films about suicide]]
[[Category:American independent films]]
[[Category:American nonlinear narrative films]]
[[Category:Skateboarding films]]
[[Category:Dutch independent films]]
[[Category:French independent films]]
[[Category:Film censorship in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Film censorship in Australia]]
[[Category:Obscenity controversies in film]]
[[Category:2002 independent films]]
[[Category:Softcore pornography]]
[[Category:French nonlinear narrative films]]
[[Category:Films set in California]]
[[Category:Teensploitation]]
[[Category:2002 drama films]]
[[Category:2000s American films]]
[[Category:2000s French films]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Harmony Korine]]
[[Category:English-language independent films]]
[[Category:English-language erotic drama films]]
[[Category:A-Film Distribution films]]