Wonderful character development!

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

People are voting emotionally.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Julian Donkey Boy, created under the Dogma 95 – Vow of Chastity, is in my opinion, one of the worst films I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through. The Vow of Chastity states that the director must refrain from personal taste, and not create a work of art. All shooting must be done on location, with hand held cameras, and no sound can be used unless it is found where the scene is being shot. It also prohibits the use of superficial actions such as murder. All of this is meant to lead to a film which forces the truth out of its characters and settings, even at the expense of aesthetic considerations and good taste.Harmony Korine has certainly managed to create a film with no apparent taste, and even less aesthetic consideration. All this could be acceptable if the end product gave its audience something to take away, other than feelings of disgust. In a film about a dysfunctional family, where Julian is either mentally ill, or mentally deficient, his sister is pregnant with his child, his mother is dead, and his father is abusive, you would expect to be both shocked and moved. The final scene where Julian's sister slips on the ice and miscarries their child should be incredibly emotional, but I found myself completely unmoved as after nearly 90 minutes, I had formed no emotional attachment to any of the characters. For this reason, I didn't find the story disturbing, it failed to have any effect on me at all.Some people have said that this is a tough film to sit through, and on that I would agree. But not because of the subject matter, rather that after sitting through an hour and a half of nauseating film making, we have been given nothing.Personally, I like to watch a film every now and again that is made unconventionally, as I think they are interesting and make great works of art. But this film isn't trying to be a work of art, rather the opposite, so you have to ask what is it really doing? In the end, the only reason so many films are made in such similar ways, is just like why stories are told with such similar devices, because that is what works, and that's what audiences want. This film is trying to drive a car with square wheels, just because everyone else has round ones. It may have had good intentions to begin with, but they have become lost somewhere amongst the flurry of vertiginous shots, and incoherent story line. Whilst a valuable educational resource for film students I wouldn't recommend this film for anyone else

I have to give Korine credit for convincing people that he is some sort of genius with his ridiculous movies. I hold nothing against him--by all indications, he is a smart and creative person, as he has consistently dreamed up (or simply assembled) some of the strangest characters and situations you are likely to ever see. Regardless, this movie is unwatchable because looks awful: fuzzy, gray and horribly framed. In many scenes it looks like the camcorder was strapped to the back of a dog that was allowed to run randomly around the room. The explanation is that we're seeing the world through the eyes of a schizophrenic: what kind of an excuse is that? Is the schizophrenic partially blind? The thing is, every effect Korine is going for--trying to visually capture anxiety and confusion--could be done on regular film or higher-quality digital, but BETTER. It is hilarious to hear him talk in the DVD commentary about how his dirt-cheap digital video recorder is a great new artistic medium that needs to be explored (rather than a lower-quality version of a certain technology). I do think Korine's movies are interesting and could even become respectable if he cooled down on the shock for the sake of shock and hired a cinematographer. But this is just bad film-making.High point: Werner Herzog is too funny to believe in this movie, the best part by far.

To represent the life of a schizophrenic through the medium of film, would be quite challenging, really. How could you possibly relate the total random madness and desperate attempts at self-control of a madman onto film? One would be wise to choose Dogme 95, as the life of these unfortunate people seems to be affected by and largely governed by, a series of rigid and obtuse beliefs, regimens or rituals put in place to form some sort of foundation in an otherwise random, "crazy" existence. They then hold fast to this foundation for dear life - white knuckles. Since these "rules" they live by come from insanity in the first place, and are not typically adaptable, or flexible, as life would require them to be, everything they attempt becomes convoluted and lost in madness and confusion. And so everything is completely unsettled, because they can't adapt. Dogme 95, with its odd, rigid requirements, vis-a-vis the "Vow of Chastity" (www.dogme95.dk) goes a long way toward capturing that dynamic. This film comes pretty close to nailing the day-in, day-out obstacles that mentally ill people must encounter, making something as simple as a bus ride to work a harrowing adventure fraught with slopes. The whole thing reminds me of the LSD scene in "Easy Rider" with the call girls in the grave yard. That was as close as I have ever seen to a realistic depiction of an acid trip in a film (you'll have to trust me on this one folks...), and this film has the same feel of reality to it. Almost as if it were a film about a schizophrenic, directed by and acted by schizophrenics. It's amazing.Bremner is brilliant. I didn't even recognize him until I read the credits, and afterward I believed that he should have been awarded for this outing - just completely convincing. Almost as if this were a documentary. He just acts so completely mentally ill, it's amazing. He even somehow affects not only the dress, but the postures, facial expressions and characteristics that make him appear to be genuinely mentally ill. Wow.Herzog's character is just so completely weird and obtuse and out of place in our culture that he is perfect here. Makes you wonder about other people you see walking around. Not hugely entertaining in terms of plot, but a real treat for someone who wants to be compelled by the film maker's art. Harmony Korine is way smarter than me and you, folks. And I think it's way cool he can get his hands on film equipment. He is pushing the envelope, which is a lot more than I can say for most directors. Safe is boring. Regard this film in the context of the first scene when Julien has his encounter with the "Pond Boy" and a plot emerges. What we see within the first two or three minutes is just astoundingly disturbing, and will clearly have consequences on the rest of Julien's life - all of their lives. Relate the rest of the film back to the first scene, and it's really rather sad. Everything that ensues has that hanging over it. You know that no matter what those people do, some day there will be a knock on the door and everything will unravel. Or will it? How could they be any more odd and troubled than they already are?

Every so often a "new style of cinema" comes along that is totally original and innovative and which can influence a horde of followers and imitators. Julien Donkey-Boy is Harmony Korine's attempt to follow in the footsteps of filmmakers Vinterburg and Von Triers and make a film according to the guidelines they set in their "Dogme '95". However, while this approach served a film like Vinterburg's "Festen" incredibly well by giving a sense of reality to the narrative through improvisation and the use of hand-held camera, in this film the Dogme guidelines are used for very self-indulgent purposes (e.g. the over-use of Herzog's improvisational turns and the dead fetus theft incident at the end of the film, which has no moral purpose or message but is used, IMO, as a means of mimicking the "bad taste" elements of the previous Dogme films "The Idiots" and "Festen"). The narrative is also not very coherent, with many inconsequential and unnecessary scenes (e.g. the therapy-session and the "Foot drummer" scenes). As a result, this film comes off as a cheap imitation of the previous Dogme films; more obsessed with style than the accompanying narrative.To add insult to injury, Julien Donkey-Boy is also one in a long line of films that gives a completely inaccurate portrayal of a person suffering from the psychological disorder schizophrenia (other examples: Me, Myself and Irene, The Cell......). Although this may sound like a nitpicking point for film buffs (since accurate portrayal does not necessarily equate to a great film), the problem with the inaccurate portrayal in this case is that the central character (Julien Donkey-Boy) is reduced to a series of mannerisms performed by Ewen Bremner. The result of this reductionist approach to the central character means that the audience never really gets to grips with the character and can never truly understand what is going on inside his mind; instead we get an actorly mimic of a genuinely schizophrenic person (apparently, this character was modeled on Korine's uncle).To conclude, this film is, IMO, a gross example of style over content with many examples of bad taste and self-indulgence.