A Dysfunctional Family Coping with Symptoms of Schizophrenia in
Harmony Korine’s 1999 film: Julien Donkey-Boy

James Reling
Jul 10, 2017 · 8 min read

A dysfunctional family with an adult son presenting with symptoms of schizophrenia is portrayed in Julien Donkey-Boy (Woods, Macauley, O’Hara, & Korine, 1999), a challenging film to watch due to disturbing content, jarring cinematography, and bizarre soundtrack. However, these arduous elements support the implied filter of perceptual and cognitive experiences of the protagonist, who fluctuates between expressing paranoia of persecution to rambunctiously childlike behavior. The film does not exclude the sociocultural experiences of Julien’s family as they interact and go about their own psychological and interpersonal struggles, which lends nuance to the depiction of the effect of mental illness on a family system.

Harmony Korine chose to create Julien Donkey-Boy under the “vows of chastity” of the “Dogme 95 Manifesto,” which is a list of rules and goals to create films that value story, acting, and theme over technical tricks (Von Trier, & Vinterberg, 2005). These rules include shooting from filter-less hand-held cameras and using only natural lighting and incidental sound. The film was shot on digital MiniDV tape, blown up to 16 mm, then blown up again to 35 mm, so the movie appears grainy and blown out with sickly muted coloration. There are many sequences of static film spliced together like a leaping series of photographs, as well as dramatic quick cuts of video. The film style is rather disorientating and abstract, though the narrative is straight-forward and minimal. Despite remarkably dramatic and largely improvised performances by the actors, the film was largely unsuccessful in the box office.

Julien (played by Ewen Bremner) appears to be the middle child and in his early 20s. His character is based on Korine’s own uncle, to whom the film is dedicated. Though the film has no discussion of Julien’s diagnosis and appears to be untreated, he clearly experiences positive symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations (Tandon, Keshavan, & Nasrallah, 2008). His sister refers to his “voices” at one point in the movie and there are several scenes of Julien talking rapidly to himself alone or in public, producing disorganized speech, such as loose associations in content and “word salad.” Julien spends a lot of time alone, amusing himself by making up songs with creative alternate lyrics to the tune of familiar nursery rhymes. Isolated in his messy bedroom, Julien makes a rather amusing monologue that seems directed at Hitler. Julien displays strong Catholic religious beliefs; he confesses to a priest that Jesus speaks to him, expressing disgust for him and declaring him unworthy to be a member of the church. Mercifully, the priest gives Julien a pamphlet and recommends he speak with a counselor — Julien thanks him and ignores his advice.

Though Julien is the protagonist, the movie gives adequate screen time to the members of his dysfunctional and all-to-real seeming family. His sister, Pearl (played with exquisite finesse by Academy Award winner, Chloë Sevigny) is a few years older than Julien and about 7 months pregnant. Pearl seems ambivalent about becoming a mother and a bit lost and depressed as she combs thrift stores for baby clothes that she can’t afford. Julien’s younger brother appears to be around 15 and spends a great deal of time training to be a wrestler, including many scenes of him crawling up the stairs on his hands without using his legs, inventing bizarre stretches, and wrestling with a large plastic trash outside. The most outlandish character is Julien’s unnamed father (played by German filmmaker, Werner Herzog), who is exceptionally cruel and abusive to each of his children. His scenes have a particularly dark humor, whether drinking codeine cough syrup and dancing alone in his room while ranting about historical events such as the 16th century Spanish conquest of Peru, or spraying his shirtless wrestler son with a hose outside in cold weather to toughen him up, berating him with, “Be a man… A winner doesn’t shiver” (Woods et al., 1999). There’s also a ghostly grandma who primarily hangs out on the couch fussing over her white poodle called “Punky.”

Julien’s family lives in poverty, and the atmosphere is very chaotic with the dad having an obvious substance use disorder while the rest of the characters seem lost in their own worlds. Julien is at his most distressed when around his family as his dad and younger brother directly antagonize him. They seem unaware of the seriousness of Julien’s untreated disorder; at one point his brother yells at Julien “to act normal for a minute” and his dad demands that Julien should slap his own face to snap himself out of it (Woods et al., 1999).

Julien does get frantic and highly distressed at times, primarily around his family. Actor Bremner makes ingenious use of expressive and bizarre body language as Julien hunches and clenches his body when agitated until the point of crumbling and slapping or hitting himself in the head. In these scenes, it is difficult to discern reality from the representation of his delusional state of mind. Very early in the film, Julien strangles a little boy in the woods, but this is never referred to again so it is unclear whether it was imagined. Julien makes several references to his mother’s death and blames his teenage brother for killing her, as she died from complications in childbirth. It is also implied that Julien impregnated his sister, but this too may be a scene depicting a delusion or fantasy.

Luckily, Pearl is a gentle master of soothing and deescalating Julien, despite their father often berating her while she is calming Julien. There is a moving scene where Julien and Pearl talk on the phone with Pearl pretending to be their mother. This too is unclear whether Julien is role-playing or believes he is talking to his mother as he refers to her death repeatedly while approaching a threshold of distress. Still acting as their mother, Pearl tells Julien, “Those voices you’re hearing, they are just friendly voices. No one is out to get you. No one wants to hurt you, right?” (Woods et al., 1999). Julien becomes upset, so she sings to him, which swings Julien around to gleefully sing along.

Pearl has a miscarriage in the climax of the movie. Julien is so distraught that he steals the fetus from the hospital, wraps it in sheets, and takes the bus across town. Julien clearly believes the baby is his. In the context of our culture, dragging a dead baby around seems like a shocking deviation, but this is common for chimpanzees, our closest relatives (Biro, Humle, Koops, Sousa, Hayashi, & Matsuzawa, 2010). Without the means to express his grief in coherent language, the harrowing bus-ride of confused passengers suspiciously eyeing Julien coddling and rocking his baby seems intended to elicit deep sympathy rather than shock from the film audience.

As opposed to his home life, Julien is in good spirits when working part-time as a janitor at an out-patient facility for people that are blind and/or otherwise have physical or psychological disabilities; most of the actors in these scenes clearly have the disabilities they are portraying. The hospital scenes are generally playful and celebratory with ecstatic group sing-alongs, dancing, and even magic trick performances. It is joyful to watch Julien go bowling with the clients and enthusiastically cheer them on as they use innovative ways to roll the ball down the lane, one person humorously asks, “did I go over the line?” (Woods et al., 1999). Julien is particularly close to a young woman who does not allow her limited sight to prevent her from ice skating. There is a touching scene of Julien washing her feet while they joke and tickle each other. On the surface, their relationship seems inappropriate, but since Julien comes across as childlike, their relationship appears sweet and chaste.

The preferred intervention to reduce positive symptoms — hallucinations and delusions — are the moderately effective dopamine antagonists, so-called atypical antipsychotic medication (Tandon, Nasrallah, and Keshavan, 2010). However, these drugs are not useful for the cognitive, mood, and motor symptoms associated with schizophrenia. Julien seems to suffer from mood symptoms that might be relieved with serotonin targeting antidepressants. However, antidepressants are limited in efficacy and may only offer some relief. Since Julien can hold a menial job and interacts well with the clients of the hospital, his functioning and level of insight seem sufficient, he might benefit from cognitive behavior therapy to reframe his delusional beliefs as understandable responses to coping with his intense family (Corrigan & Calabrese, 2003). Julien’s father seems hopelessly abusive and Julien seems at his most functioning away from his dad and brother, so it would be ideal to remove Julien from his home. He might thrive in a residential care facility with other people coping with symptoms of schizophrenia, or sharing an apartment with his sister.

Julien Donkey-Boy was largely considered a “self-indulgent mess” by some critics (Guthmann, 1999). Roger Ebert (1999) gave it credit for its “depth of compassion and understanding,” with the caveat, “the odds are good that most people will dislike this film or be offended by it. For others, it will provoke sympathy rather than scorn.” It is true most people would find this film too disturbing to enjoy watching. Korine is known for the shock-value of his films; however, Julien Donkey-Boy is most outrageous for successfully capturing the nuance of the complicated interpersonal relationship dynamics of a family too impaired to get treatment for their son. Without mentioning politics, the film shows the reality of a broken mental health system unable to support those who most need it. It is easy to imagine Julien as homeless or naively crossing the law and ending up in jail to be abused by dangerous criminals. Korine adds depth to understanding schizophrenia by including the multifaceted social contributors and allowing the character to have good and bad days just as a real person would. Therefore, Julien Donkey-Boy is a rare glimpse into the sociocultural factors and family dynamics of mental disorder.

References

Corrigan, P. W., & Calabrese, J. D. (2003). Cognitive therapy and schizophrenia. In M. A. Reinecke & D. A. Clark (Eds.), Cognitive therapy across the lifespan: Theory, research and practice (pp. 315–333). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Biro, D., Humle, T., Koops, K., Sousa, C., Hayashi, M., & Matsuzawa, T. (2010). Chimpanzee mothers at Bossou, Guinea carry the mummified remains of their dead infants. Current Biology, 20, R351–R352.

Ebert, R. (1999, November). Julien Donkey-Boy [Review]. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/julien-donkey-boy-1999

Guthmann, E. (1999, October). Low-tech ‘Julien’ is an ugly mess / Korine throws aesthetics out the window [Review]. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Low-Tech-Julien-Is-an-Ugly-Mess-Korine-throws-2900610.php

Tandon, R., Keshavan, M. S., & Nasrallah, H. A. (2008). Schizophrenia, “just the facts” what we know in 2008. 2. Epidemiology and etiology. Schizophrenia Research, 102, 1–18.

Tandon, R., Nasrallah, H. A., & Keshavan, M. S. (2010). Schizophrenia, “just the facts” 5. Treatment and prevention past, present, and future. Schizophrenia Research, 122, 1–23.

Von Trier, L., & Vinterberg, T. (2005). Dogme 95: The vows of chastity. In A. Utterson (Ed.), Technology and Culture, the Film Reader (pp. 87–88). New York, NY: Routledge.

Woods, C., Macaulay, S., & O’Hara, R. (Producers), & Korine, H. (Director). (1999). Julien Donkey-Boy [Motion picture]. US: 391 Productions.

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