TNS is 10: Interview - Harmony Korine
17th April 2013
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What Makes Harmony Korine?
or What’s Eating Harmony Korine?
or “I’m slightly delusional”
“I think I’m slightly delusional when it comes to business and perception,” says Harmony Korine, the writer and director of Mister Lonely. “It’s been my experience that I’m always wrong. I always think my films are going to be the sequel to Caddyshack or the Shawshank Redemption, and the general population is going to devour these films, and I’m always wrong. I think the victory is in making the movie and anything else is a bonus.”
Mister Lonely tells the story of a Mexican Michael Jackson impersonator who meets a Marilyn Monroe in Paris, and is invited to join an impersonator’s commune in the Scottish Highlands. There he meets a despotic Charlie Chaplin and a cast of oddballs before tragedy comes to the community.
Twinned with this is the story of a group of nuns living in Panama who discover that they can fall from planes without injury. To add to the sheer oddness of the story is the spectacular reach of the cast; Werner Herzog is the deranged missionary who leads the nuns, David Blaine is a priest who has a cameo pulling the head off a chicken, James Fox plays The Pope, whilst Samantha Morton is Marilyn Monroe. To boil it down, Mister Lonely is an indie movie about a Hispanic Michael Jackson doing Moonwalker era moves beside a Scottish Loch whilst nuns cycle through the sky. If you haven’t picked it up so far; this film is odd.
“I’m always thinking that they’re the most normal films. I don’t care so much about making perfect sense, I care about making perfect nonsense. That’s really the thing.” Korine later expands on the point, “I’d rather speak to a mood or an ambience or a tone, than to any plot.”

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