Post by StevePulaski on Nov 23, 2011 22:47:31 GMT -5
Edith Massey, Divine, and Mary Vivian Pearce.
Rating: No star rating.
Pink Flamingos is abashing in context and absolutely sickening to stomach. But it's so different, so independently crafted, and so uniquely presented that a bad review is simply not possible. It's a transgressive art form that is not of good, but shockingly so bad it's good quality. I believe that John Waters is quite possibly the only filmmaker who could concoct something like Pink Flamingos seriously.
The film is disgusting, revolting, appalling, maddening, deplorable, and of immature taste. But its script, events, and art form all are taken in such a unique and respectable manner that it is impossible not to commend it for being such an exploitive film. I can't remember the last time I've seen a bad film with such interesting characters, a flamboyant lead, and a satisfying script and story.
Plotwise, the film centers around two separate families both in competition for the title of "The Filthiest Person/Family Alive." The first family is made up of the current "filthiest person" named Divine who goes under the pseudonym "Babs Johnson" (Divine), her simpleton, egg-obsessed mother Edie (Massey), her son who has a chicken/sex fetish named Crackers (Mills) and his traveling sex-companion Cotton (Pearce). They reside in a mobile home in the middle of the woods with a pair of plastic pink flamingos out on their front lawn.
The other family is made up of Connie (Stole) and Raymond Marble (Lochary). The couple run a black market baby sale to Lesbian couples by having their sex-servant named Channing (Wilroy) go out and kidnap random women and having them impregnated by him. They hold the women captive until they give birth to the kid, and upon selling it to the Lesbian couple, they donate the proceeds to heroin dealers at elementary schools and their own line of pornographic stores.
There's your premise and you can imagine the barrage of laughs, screams, shrieks, and quivers you'll get out of that. It appears Waters had all of these sick, twisted, and deranged ideas but couldn't find a way to successfully incorporate all or enough into a feature length film. So he made the plot about two separate families being gratuitously filthy so that many or all of his ideas could be fully utilized. Genius.
It should also be said that Pink Flamingos occupies one of the strangest scores in history. Many songs are played, mostly older tunes that are instantly recognizable. I doubt musicians like the great Little Richard and LaVern Baker ever thought their music would be incorporated in a shock film for the sick and depraved. It might actually be something to be proud of.
Normally the case with shock films is once you discover or see the shocking element it wears thin and the film itself becomes a one note joke. Pink Flamingos doesn't just include one but various elements and scenes of shock that assure boredom prevention and the peak of your curiosity reached.
Being shot on 16 and 35mm and being re-released twenty five years later, the film still occupies a strange and stylistic documentary look which only further intensifies some of the film's scenes because some, if not all, of them were actually real. Divine does an exceptionally well done job of playing one of the most provactive and shameful film protagonists ever seen, but the true tragedy is he died before experiencing any true, broad success.
So what am I missing? Whether or not I recommend the film. I can't say. It's one of those films that you should already know if you want to see. I don't need to further you in your decision-making. Pink Flamingos is a trashy, stylistic masterpiece of the maximum proportion. To call it manipulative would be wrong since it still has a rather subtle popularity, and to call it "awful" would be completely wrong. It is completely worthy of the title "the best worst film."
NOTE: The "no star rating" should not be confused with the "zero stars" rating (only given to the worst possible films). It's simply put there because I can not effectively rate this film in any way. And giving it multiple ratings would be disingenuous. It exists in a world that doesn't have a single star shining.
Starring: Divine, David Lochary, Edith Massey, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Danny Mills, David Lochary, and Channing Wilroy. Directed by: John Waters.