Regardless of the issue, Larry Clark has made a Larry Clark film.  No other director shows teenagers in the physical, mental and emotional manner Larry Clark has done with kids, Bully and now his most recent and most anticipated film to date Ken Park.  His continued success of getting the most out of his non or amateur actors enables a strong level of authenticity which made kids so impactful.  It is Clark's explicit approach in his depiction of his characters physical bodies and sexual practices that make his films and his filmmaking process have an immediate reactionary effect on an audience.  Many people do not go beyond their reaction and truly contemplate the films message or the deeper reasons for their reactions.  If they would do so, they will see in Ken Park why so many teenagers are caught and trapped in lifestyles that offer them little self-worth or hope.

In the opening of Ken Park, a teenage boy, Ken Park, rides his skateboard to a skating park and video tapes himself shooting a bullet through his head.  It is not until the very end of the film that we are shown a series of events that lead up to Park's suicide.  They are not the sole reason for the suicide, but a definite influence.

Ken Park's suicide bookends the stories of four other teenage friends and the adults who influence their lives.  Claude endures his often drunk father's consistent put downs and insults.  The father's role is played by actor Wade Williams, with an intimidating presence in every scene in one level, but upon closer observation his demeanor and expressions display an inner level of confusion and hurt.  This relationship's conflict and resolution is the most devastating to watch, although the relationship with Tate and his grandparents (biological parents are completely absent) has a more disturbing ending.  However it does not resonate with the emotional impact Claude's father delivers.

The other main male character is Shawn, who maintains a wide distance from his mother, but has a very close physical relationship with his girlfriend's mother.  He provides her an escape and slow wreck of her marriage and he receives a false sense of affection and intimacy.

The female character amongst this group of friends is Peaches.  The first impressions of her home life are of a home that is stable, conservative, but perhaps somewhat repressed.  Peaches' father is a deeply devoted religious widowed man, still in mourning over the death of his wife.  He sees Peaches as the vision of purity much like her mother once was.  However, Peaches hides her sexual encounters from her father, attempting to remain the impression of a virginal devoted daughter.  Her father however is on the brink of a breakdown and Peaches can only get away with so much.

All the adults in Ken Park live in denial and devastation.  In their children and the kids of the lives they affect, they see vulnerability and at times appear jealous of them.  Perhaps they see just how innocent and care-free they were and wonder how they themselves came to be who they are.  They ultimately use intimacy as their form of manipulation to take advantage of the kids.  The teenagers themselves take on their parents burden and grow up to be as screwed up as them.  For now however, the teenagers escape their worlds for a false sense of utopia: they have sex and more sex with each other and ultimately that's all they have.

Alexander Rojas is currently writing film reviews for filmmonthly.com while he secretly plans to take over the website and then the world.

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