Gummo

Gummo (1997) is Harmony Korine's directorial debut, and you can watch it online on iFILM. It isn't a film with a plot so much as a collage of life in Xenia, Ohio, a battered town that never recovered after a tornado tore through it years earlier.

There's no real storyline here, just kids with nothing to do. Solomon and Tummler shoot stray cats and sell them for a few dollars of meat money. One boy huffs glue, another pushes a stroller down flooded streets, and two bleach-blonde sisters (one played by Chloe Sevigny) sit around talking about nothing. Korine shot on a patchwork of film, video and home cameras, filling the frame with actual local residents alongside his actors.

The movie split critics down the middle: some called it garbage, others called it an honest portrait of forgotten America, and both camps have a point. It's a harsh, provocative piece with no moral and no easy answers, closer to an art experiment than a drama. Worth a look if you're curious about 1990s American underground cinema rather than a tidy night-in watch. Stream Gummo (1997) online on iFILM.