AT CANNES, KIDS TRIES TO MAKE A SERIOUS STATEMENT

Harlan Jacobson / USA Today / May 23, 1995

Opening shot: Close-up of two kids in a deep French kiss. More tongue-wrestling.

The camera pulls back... Two kids in an advanced state of undress, in bed, in the girl's room. An army of dazed, stuffed bears looks on as the boy declares his intentions. They are not admirable. Soon bouncing heads simulate the sex act.

That's how Larry Clark's Kids opened Monday at the Cannes Film Festival. What follows is a 24-hour day in the life of adolescents. It makes all the pit stops for the "sex, violence and drugs that most kids think about all day," according to Clark.

Miramax chose Cannes to pull the veils off the much-anticipated Kids to frame it as a work of art meriting serious attention.

Set in Manhattan, the film follows one teen - ignorant he's HIV positive - on his odyssey of seduction as the virgin girl he has infected is in hot pursuit with the awful news. At the same time, a baby-faced cast, which "ranges in age from 12 to 19," according to Clark, "shows how kids act when there's no authority figure in place."

Clark, a 52-year-old career photographer, together with 20-year-old screenwriter Harmony Korine, have constructed a story that "I hope is a cautionary tale," says Clark. "I mean, at some point, everybody has to wake up."

Clark met Korine in a neighborhood park when he was taking pictures of skateboarders and gave him the basic situation to flesh out into a script. "These are all my friends," Korine says of the cast. "Why go out and get Johnny Depp?"

While Kids might push some parental denial buttons, Clark hopes "parents and kids will go see the movie together." The MPAA won't be asked to rate Kids until near its tentative July 21 release date. An NC-17 rating may force Disney-owned Miramax to sell the film to another distributor.

"We believe it is an important artistic and social document," says Miramax spokesperson Marcy Granata, "and will handle it appropriately. We don't think the question of its rating should obscure consideration of its value."

With 90 seconds trimmed from the film's opening sexual encounter since it was screened at Sundance in January, Clark says he shot and edited the film to obtain an R-rating from the MPAA (no kids under 17 without an adult). "I won't cut a frame more. I made a 90-minute movie because I get bored after 90 minutes," Clark says. "Now, it really moves."