I’ve just watched the documentary We Were Once Kids about the making of Kids. I’ve not watched this since its release, but it’s now time to revisit it with fresh eyes and more context. If you’ve not seen Kids. It follows a bunch of teenagers in 90s NYC, over the course of a hot summers day in a documentary style. Style is the important word there. The handheld chaotic camera makes this feel real. It’s not, but there’s truth in every lie as they say. It’s scripted, everyone’s acting, but they’re all first timers mostly playing themselves. The drugs are real, the booze is real. Drugs, booze, I thought this was about kids? Therein lies some of the warranted controversy. We open with Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick) trying to sweet talk his virgin girlfriend into having sex. It’s awkward and uncomfortable. Telly is not in love, he just wants to have sex. He’s a scrawny, vile and obnoxious prick. As is his mate Casper (Justin Pierce), who gets all the sordid details as they laugh about it, walking down the street drinking out of a brown paper bag as the city is waking up. Honestly though, everyone’s pretty wild. As we meet Jennie (Chloë Sevigny) and Ruby (Rosario Dawson), they’re discussing with a group of girlfriends how they lost their virginity and how much they love sex. It’s the focus of everything. Sex, drugs, sex, booze, sex, skating, sex. Telly’s going around screwing anyone he can. What he doesn’t know is, Jennie, who he’s slept with before has just found out she’s HIV Positive. This is what made Kids shocking when I saw it as an 18 year old. We’d grown up with the AIDS adverts on TV, we knew to be careful. Watching this scumbag on the screen with no respect for himself or anyone else was genuinely chilling. It still is. It’s like a horror. If this were an underground film that stayed that way, maybe it’d be different, but there’s something in it breaking out as a mainstream hit that makes it all the more disturbing. These kids have no discipline and no parents around to enforce any. They’re ferrel. It’s a pretty depressing watch, full of misogyny, homophobia, rape and squalor. Honestly it’s worst watching it now, 30 years on. Essentially it comes down to Jennie spending the film searching for Telly before he sleeps with anyone else, but her day gets even worse before that happens. Despite the unsavoury narrative, dialogue, concept, it’s oddly captivating. You feel like you shouldn’t be watching it. It’s really difficult to get a handle on. After my second viewing I can only say that despite its undeniable innovative nature. It’s a horrible film and I hate it. It’s only redeeming traits, that it launched a couple of half decent careers. Although it’s telling that most of the cast and creators went on to very little or nothing. It’s depressing, it’s nasty, if you want to know how nasty. Pretend you’re in New Zealand and watch the documentary.
5/10
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