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BODY BLOWSJessica Winter / Voice / September 18 - 24, 2002
Soaked through with every variety of bodily fluid, Ken Park revels in adolescent bumping and bloodletting, the sticky standbys of any teenage riot instigated by Kids perpetrators Larry Clark and Harmony Korine. But the film's real shock value rests not in its hardcore flourishes - including a dispassionately observed rub-n-tug pricelessly scored to the grunts and squeals of a women's pro tennis match - but in its wholly unexpected tenderness, and one suspects much of the credit goes to co-director Ed Lachman, the veteran cinematographer recently laureled in Venice for lensing Todd Haynes's Far From Heaven. "These were difficult scenes with first-time actors, so Larry and I allotted 40 days, which is unheard of for the low budget we had," says Lachman, whose credits as cinematographer range from Werner Herzog's Stroszek to Steven Soderbergh's The Limey. "But it allowed us to work through each scene slowly, so the intimacy could gestate. The camera too is a participant, another actor in the scene. Sometimes when a character is talking, the camera will move off to capture a detail or a gesture, and that adds intimacy too, to convey the gentleness and respect between the performers." This kindly dynamic culminates in a leisurely, positively utopian three-way. "If people only see sexuality, they're missing the point. These adolescents are using theirs in a very nurturing, healthy way." Lachman is, of course, well prepared for any stateside outrage over Ken Park's explicit lyricism. "I'm still wondering if people have sex in America. I guess it's always behind closed doors with the lights out and the clothes on, and it's always a mistake." Repression and regret are key melancholy strains of Far From Heaven, Haynes's meticulously marvelous riff on Douglas Sirk's '50s melodramas. "Sirk followed a specific grammar, so I had to immerse myself in that language," explains Lachman (now finishing the script for "a film about the Beat movement from a female perspective"). "I didn't feel limited by it, because what I love about my job is getting to move between different worlds. The challenge is not to have a signature camerawork or lighting, but to be more of a chameleon." 
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