Ken Park

Ken Park is a teenage skater whose death at a Visalia skate park becomes the event that threads together the lives of four friends who knew him. The film follows Shawn, the most conventional of the group, while Tate fizzes with a volatile rage that can erupt at any moment. Claude endures a brutal father and a mother who, though heavily pregnant, vacillates between tenderness and fear. Peaches looks after a devoutly religious father yet longs to break free from the rules that bind her. Through street sessions, tense family scenes, and charged private moments, the movie offers a raw portrait of adolescence in a troubled world. The film's tone is rough and unvarnished.

Released in 2003, Ken Park is directed by Larry Clark with Edward Lachman behind the camera, and it stems from an original screenplay by Harmony Korine rather than an adaptation. The collaboration blends Clark's documentary intimation with Lachman's polished cinematography.

Ken Park sparked intense controversy for its explicit depictions of teen sexuality and violence, provoking bans and censorship debates across several countries and venues. It fueled debates about the line between artistic realism and exploitation, and its notoriety kept it in circulation as a touchstone for limits of screen sexuality.

Critics were divided: some praised the unflinching realism and the way it exposes strained family ties, peer pressure, and longing, while others criticized it as sensational or gratuitous. The film examines freedom versus control in adolescence and asks what it costs to grow up fast among cameras and crowds today.

Awards: The film did not receive major nominations or wins at prominent ceremonies, drawing attention instead from independent cinema circles for its raw approach and the Clark Korine collaboration. It remains a touchstone for discussions about censorship and artistic risk in early 2000s American cinema today.