Ken Park

More graphic than Kids, yet not as visceral a film. I was not offended as many were, but neither did I find it pleasant to watch. But herein lies the catch – it is not meant to be pleasant. The camera is never as distant and detached as in a documentary but neither is it as in love with its subjects. Much of the time it feels that it is just present for better or for worse. And with it, the viewer is present forced to not look away at this collection of stories from suburbia. Only at the end do you feel that Clark has left a distant view for one that seems to more fully engage and then it is to join in an escapists answer. Unfortunately it feels an over-romanticized answer to a problem that deserves much better answers. Of course, answers in life are messy and hard to come by and it is not my suggestion that he should have picked some other over simplified answer, just to say that it seems that Clark leaves a detatched view to agree with the answer found by the kids in Ken Park.

Every story deserves to be told but perhaps not every story is for everyone. So it is with Kenpark – a story not for the easily offended and certainly not for children in the same way that the reality never should have been for them in the first place. Where Kids was a movie that all Kids should see, Kenpark is a movie that you can only hope for fewer kids to be forced to experience the reality of.