Kids

The joys of adolescence - discovering sex, drugs and the humiliation of watching your own vomit float around a stranger's toilet - are all painted in vivid detail in Larry Clark's provocative and disturbing Kids. Graduating from still to moving images in a bold and deft fashion, photographer Clark's film debut is a relentless assault on your senses and morals as it follows a group of friends in New York for a day. Hanging out with a bunch a sex-crazed teenagers for 24 hours might not appear to be an exciting proposition, but the cast of unknowns are so naturally charismatic that you do begin to care about their fate which becomes - in this film - a question of life or death. By the end, Jennie (Chloe Sevigny) has discovered that her only sexual encounter has left her HIV-positive, and Clark's observations of her devastation is gentle and moving. His cast of kids fall into their characters with consummate ease - they are funny, repulsive and heart-rending by turn. What's all the more shocking is that you realise that this film is concerned not with just these kids, but all kids.

Reviewed by Monika Maurer

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