We may demand more pressure on the envelope as a viewing public, but the cumulative effect of pushing the envelope is still in the realm of speculative sociolology. This asks of the average cinema viewer much more sexual maturity than most films ever hope to ask. “Ken Park” demands that the viewer suspend that response, look beyond any arousal or outrage generated from the explicit sexuality and focus on the relationships in the film (of which sex is merely the expression). We are all sexual (mostly) and (most of us) respond to visual stimuli. Unfortunately that’s also the problem with “Ken Park”.Īn average viewer can’t witness explicit sexual behavior and be unaffected by it. What separates it from pornography is that “Ken Park”‘s intent is not to arouse but to provoke an emotional response by placing these same powerful ingredients within a troublesome relational context. Its not pornography, but it will be confused with it easily since it contains many of the same powerful ingredients: nudity and explicit sexual behavior. This bizarre dichotomy underscores their alienation # the result of suburban ennui, a teenager’s inherent sense of melodrama, and the disturbing nature of their home environments.Īnyone who finds pornography disturbing will find “Ken Park” disturbing for both the wrong and the right reasons. But they spend precious little time together and none of them seems to know much about one another’s family lives. They’re all rather tight, or so they claim. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives.

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