MARFA GIRL
US, 2012, 105 minutes, Colour.
Adam Mediano, Drake Burnett, Jeremy St James, Mary Harley.
Directed by Larry Clark.
The principal reason for seeing this film is the writer-director, photographer, Larry Clark.
He first made an impact in the cinema world with his eposé of adolescents in New York City, and the absence of parents in their lives, in the 1995 film, Kids. At the time, some commentators thought it was exploitative of the young people, their lives and personalities, their behaviour, drug taking and sexual interactions. Many defended the film as a picture of young people and the times.
He continued his preoccupation with young people in films for the next 20 years or more. Again, he has been accused of exploitation of young people, getting them to perform intimate acts, especially sexually explicit acts, as in his drama, Kan Park, 2002. His picture of young people in Florida, Bully, was more oriented towards a mainstream audience.
He continued filmmaking, photography, documentaries, some features. In 2012, he directed this film, open again to the previous accusations. In 2014 he shifted his attention to Paris, again with young people, especially a group of male adolescents acting as escorts, The Smell of Us.
This film is set in the town of Marfa, on the Mexican- American border. It opens with a focus on a young lad, Adam, smoking weed with his friend, pursued by the border police, brought home to his mother, a kindly and caring woman. The next day is his birthday, some attention from his mother, going to class and sleeping through a lesson on the French Revolution, challenged by the teacher, who is heavily pregnant, she decides that instead of sending him to the principal, she will give him a beating. She puts him over her knee and gives him 17 – which both he and she seem to enjoy. She later appears at the end of term, wishing Adam well and expecting to give birth to her child.
What the film does is show some details of life of various characters in this border town, especially the adolescents, interviews with some adults, and encounters with three of the border police. Which means that there is a lot of dialogue in the film, some of it seemingly improvised as the characters give their life stories. Interspersed with the interviews are quite a number of sex scenes, once again quite explicit in activity and nudity, especially with the redneck border policeman. So, the film as with his other films, is a mixture of the interesting and the prurient – with some touches of violence.
Adam reappears through the film, give some explanations of his life, but his focus is on his skateboarding and his relationship with a young girl in the town, the sexual relationship, his meetings with his mother, an encounter with the border policeman who makes a sexual advance on him, who also attacks Adam’s mother, earlier showing her vagina pictures from the Internet, and Adam shoots him.
The girl of the title is an artist, from a wealthy white background, accused at times of being condescending to the Hispanics in the town. She is seen sketching two young musicians, then having sex with them and lying naked with them, giving her philosophy of her father being a hippie and urging her to have sex with anyone and everyone – which she has, and does in the film. This is especially the case with a Hispanic musician whom she has a conversation with and then a sexual encounter with the pleasant young representative of the Border Police. She is humiliated by the redneck and then raped by him. She has variety of experiences but whether she learns anything from them remains a moot point.
With the Border Police, one has a daughter and is very aggressive towards the redneck in his humiliating treatment of a Hispanic girl at the restaurant. The other Hispanic man is more genial, has a long conversation with the Marfa Girl, explaining his life, idleness, joining the border police, his tattooes – culminating in a sexual encounter.
But, there is a lot of attention on the redneck, who seems to be something of a sociopath, chasing Adam and his friend, tackling them and bringing them home, being condescending to the Hispanic girl in the bar, taking another Hispanic girl out on a date which seems to have ended satisfactorily, preoccupied with sex, angry at his ex-wife and taking his child away, on the Internet looking at pornographic pictures of the vagina, accosting Adam’s mother with the photos, attacking her, encountering the Martha Girl, lying naked and erect, with the other police close by, and then raping the girl. While there might have been a moment’s sympathy for him and his hard father and difficult life, his violent and raping behaviour alienates him and it is not surprising that Adam shoots him.
There is a young girl, with a young baby, thinking of going to a bigger town to do striptease and dancing to earn some money – who also has a birthday sexual encounter with Adam.
A Hispanic woman comes to town, having experienced a death, returning, talking about her life and sharing ideas and experiences with Adam’s mother, with a background of Hispanic non-Christian rituals – and, at the end of the film, the main characters are all standing with her as she does incantations and sprinklings.(At times, there is a glimpse of the Catholic Church and a statue of Mary on the street corner – but that is the only glimpse of Catholicism and Christianity.)
So, Larry Clark is exploring some of the characters in this isolated border situation, inspirational interaction, the border and the time, problems with drugs, in the sexual encounters and the consequences.
