Oscar the Grouch once sang of his love of trash. Harmony Korine has consistently made films that seemed to celebrate that sentiment, but none as overtly as Trash Humpers, currently at Cinema Village.

Frankly, I thought the title would just be a non-sequitor, but the throughline of the piece is literally that, a group of outsiders gyrate against garbage bins.  To attempt further synopsis is ridiculous.  Korine, a truly original master who disappeared from the cinema for over a decade, returned last year with the wonderful Mister Lonely, a film considered by the critical masses to be deeply personal and void of the nonsense of Korine’s youth evident in the much maligned masterpiece Gummo. 

Trash Humpers is nothing but the nonsense. And like two Jean-Luc Godard works I recently revisited, La Chinoise or Le Gai Savoir, it is very much a what-does-one-say experience. If you think a movie about southern fringe dwellers wearing grotesque elderly masks getting it on with garbage sounds funny or interesting in some way, then take on a memorable experience. Or just revel in the attempt at a VHS quality look, complete with grain, tracking problems and cues such as PLAY or REW. When it’s done you can bask in it by imagining luxury designer Agnes B. who has produced Korine’s last two films, discussing the work with its maker.

I recently saw Kick-Ass, thinking it could be irritating and off-putting. Trash Humpers makes Kick-Ass or any movie for that matter look like Masterpiece Theater. When the show was over, three strangers stood in silence at our respective urinals in the Cinema Village men’s room. This standard moment became too uncomfortable to bear for one who finally said, “It’s like someone told a bad joke and no one’s laughing.”   That line, that moment sums up Trash Humpers better than any other description one could offer.