Marfa Girl
Marfa Girl
| 20 November 2012 (USA)
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A disaffected Texas teen spends his 16th birthday getting high, hanging out and having casual sex.

Reviews
BroadcastChic

Excellent, a Must See

Gurlyndrobb

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

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Keira Brennan

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

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Christophe

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

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Seth_Rogue_One

Is probably something that mr. Larry Clark asked his assistant when he was on set to start film this, and seemingly they never found it and had to make up something on the spot.'Bully (2001)' was a great movie, directed by him but after that he hasn't done anything remotely as good... 'Wassup Rockers (2005)' despite poor acting was still decent because it had at least somewhat of a plot where as this does not and seem to aimlessly just go to events that lead to teenagers getting naked.Now granted, I don't believe Larry Clark has done a movie where teenagers don't get naked but really with this one I seriously started to wonder if he did this film for the sole reason of getting off on the nude teens with multiple crotch-shots (male and female)...It sure couldn't be because he thought he had a good story to tell.One of the characters says 'if people f'd more there would be no war. Less killing, less rape, you know what I mean?'. The character has some similarities to Larry Clark (it's an artist who likes to paint guys genitals, much like Clark himself is an artist who likes to film them) so that seems like a way for Clark to justify his fascination with teenagers sex lives, and possibly a (poor) attempt at giving some depth into a hollow movie.A sequel is listed for being in the making for next year, I don't see how they expect to make any money off of that, but maybe Clark doesn't care and he just want to film some more naked teenagers.There was a time when he was seen as a talented director who was slightly perverted, but it's quickly turning to him being seen as a perverted director who's slightly talented instead.I think he need to do a full 360 if he want to turn that around, maybe make a movie about adults instead or if the teenage thing have to continue let them keep their clothes on and focus on a good story instead, and maybe a cast that have acting experience.

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fellini_58701

Pretentious boring and who cares, I could not believe this film won the best film prize at the 2012 Rome film festival it must have been a bad year for films in the official competition. The film about bored teenagers in El Paso, TX who look like there were ripped off Calvin Kline a fashion ad, bad acting bad sex, and of course stereotyping border patrol agents as bad people who are to get you and make life miserable. Larry Clark should learn from his greater film like Kids and Bully and remember when he could actually make films and not bore audiences to death. nothing much to say about a film with nothing much to tell.

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Steve Pulaski

It's hard to believe that it was seven long years between the release of Larry Clark's Wassup Rockers and Marfa Girl. Clark's themes of destructive adolescent behavior, broken families, and teenage angst and sex are now more prominent than ever, and one would assume that Clark would be toying with every possible convention for the material in present times, when censorship restrictions is now far more liberal than it ever has been. However, Clark claims there is still apprehension towards his kind of material from "crooked Hollywood distributors," which is why he made the decision to release Marfa Girl on his website, with no plans of it ever coming to DVD or being released in theaters.It's sad when a man of Clark's caliber must resort to the broad and indistinguishable realm of online distribution to get his films seen but maybe that's for the better. He is not limited by any means, is his own boss, and still possesses the freedom to make the movies he wants to make. As a writer, I can respect that immensely. His film Marfa Girl could mistakenly be called a "return to form" for Clark, due to his lengthy absence, but just by watching the film you know he hasn't left. His last feature Wassup Rockers, however, felt nothing as much as a watered-down depiction of what Clark does best, which is handle the aforementioned themes.Marfa Girl concerns the town of Marfa, Texas, which is near the border of the United States and Mexico. The town is as sleepy as can be, often possessing a dreamy quality with its wide open spaces, soft blue skies, and frequently humble, muted colors. It concerns a number of people living in this town, mostly working class characters, one of whom is a teenager named Adam (Adam Mediano), a sixteen-year-old who is approaching his seventeenth birthday in a matter of days. He is beginning to become sexually curious, hoping to get lucky with his sixteen-year-old girlfriend Inez (Mercedes Maxwell), who he trusts completely, but also being tempted with sex from numerous other people, including his twentysomething neighbor.The titular character is played by Drake Burnette, a local artist who also looks to have sex with Adam. The film's powerhouse scene comes when Adam and her talk about sex beginning when Adam is in the bathtub and continues when the two walk out in public. The scene touches on every topic of sex, from pleasing a woman sexually to elaborating on the unfair double-standard of when a man or a woman have many sexual partners. It wasn't until I saw this scene did I recall how much I missed Clark's naturalistic conversations and his characters' curiosity and interest in sex. Clark doesn't stray from making the dialogs explicit as well, with both characters going into intricate detail about the mysterious ways of a woman's clitoris.A subplot involves Tom (Jeremy St. James), a lowly, misogynistic border patrol agent who sets his sights on Adam, Adam's mother (Mary Farley), along with Inez. St. James does great work here as a first-time actor, effectively creating an unsettling atmosphere whenever he steps on screen. His character Tom is an unpredictable one, with an early scene with him taking place at a restaurant where he remarks to a waitress about how her feet wouldn't hurt if she didn't have such gigantic breasts. Tom is a scummy character, doing a thankless job to boot. It isn't until Burnette's mysterious character strikes a conversation with two of Tom's Mexican coworkers, questioning if they feel guilty in any way for arresting their own people. The scene, which takes place inside an abandoned warehouse, is equally tense and unsettling, perhaps providing subtle commentary about how every encounter, no matter how trivial or meaningless, with the border patrol is in some way.Despite the seven year gap, Clark stills seems to be interested in the Latino, "skater-punk" lifestyle. Frequent scenes involve some sort of skateboarding, gathering, or languorously wandering the streets of Marfa. Cinematographer David Newbert knows how to capture the look and appeal of a sleepy town, tucked away down in Texas. The dreaminess of the film's aesthetic is something that I can't easily shake, similar to the gritty and dirty aesthetic utilized in Clark's previous films.Clark's directorial debut is Kids, which is not only one of the most powerful debut films I have yet to see but one of the most powerful films that I have yet to see. Its honest depiction of teenagers and the degradation of values is something scarcely brought up but brilliantly handled overall, making for an exceptional debut film. He went on to direct Bully, a film showing murder for the sick, sadistic crime that it is, and not cheaply portraying or exploiting its subject for something to laugh at or for cheap shock. Marfa Girl tackles the familiar themes of Clark's earlier works, and while that could easily be turned into a criticism rather than a strength (Clark is seventy and maybe should look into other themes), seeing something like this particular film makes me glad to have him back and know that he won't be limited in his approach any longer.Starring: Adam Mediano, Mercedes Maxwell, Drake Burnette, Jeremy St. James, and Mary Farley. Directed by: Larry Clark.

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Richard von Lust

After our mind blowing experiences with Bully and Ken Park I was expecting something much better than Marfa Girl could deliver. It seems that Larry Clark has taken the old 20th. Century criticisms of Ken Park to heart and toned down his productions to a level of mechanized banality. And the result simply doesn't work.The central characters are a community of Spanish Americans living somewhere in the deep south west who are driven to a point of madness by the mindless tedium of their existence. Adam is 16 and hangs around with a group of talentless drop out musicians and artists who spend their days drug taking, fornicating and banging instruments. The local policeman is a psycho maniac who gets turned on by pain whilst Adam's mother searches for cosmic vibes with pet birds and sound mediums.So far so good. But I'm afraid that's all there is. The plot is virtually non existent, the acting is labored and the dialog is almost incoherent. Of course, as with all Larry Clark films, the cast were all able to shed their clothes and copulate in front of the crew. We are treated to six young male naked backsides pounding up and down so convincingly that I doubt it was simulated. Larry Clark certainly had a good time watching their convulsions but this time he doesn't share it with the audience. Unlike Ken Park there is no shocking full on ejaculation to trade mark the production with crystal realism. In fact there isn't even an erect male full frontal to express the degradation of it all. All such visible stirrings are this time kept firmly within the lad's boxer shorts. So Larry Clark has finally descended into Hollywoodesque coyness with all the well ploughed banality and tedium that oh so common genre forces upon us. Yawn.

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