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"You've got the kid who's sleeping with his girlfriend's mother, the kid who's abused by his father while his mother just plays it off like there's nothing going on, the teenage girl whose parents are religious fanatics and she acts out by fucking all the boys in the neighborhood. That comes from a girl I knew when I grew up."
- Larry Clark | Filmmaker Magazine - 2001
Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn seems to be the most conventional. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim. But they spend precious little time together and none of them seems to know much about one another's family lives. This bizarre dichotomy underscores their alienation and the result of suburban ennui, a teenager's inherent sense of melodrama, and the disturbing nature of their home environments.
Directed by
Larry Clark
Ed Lachman
Written by Harmony Korine while Kids was still in pre-production. The screenplay was sold to Larry Clark and cinematographer Ed Lachman shortly after it was completed. It was intended to be Clark's second film, his follow-up to Kids, but a falling out with Lachman, as well as difficulty finding financers, delayed it. It was not until 2001 that Ken Park went into production, with a budget of 1.3 million dollars. It premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on the 31st of August, 2002, and also at the Venice Film Festival on the 4th of September. It has since been banned in Australia and has not had a theatrical run in the U.S. but soon enough it will be.
Written by
Larry Clark
Harmony Korine
Larry Clark interviewed on SuicideGirls.com (2003)
"I had that story and I know what I want to do but I don't have a screenplay. I'm not really a writer, I don't have the discipline to sit down and do that even though I am now. That's when I met Harmony who was of the skate kids in New York City. He was in his last week in high school and that he wanted to be a screenwriter."