Julian Donkey-Boy

I don't think the Werner Herzog character is the ogre everybody says he is. The scene where he tells Ewan Bremner that his poem sucks and quotes the Clint Eastwood dialogue at him, I thought was rather touching - it seemed to me he was taking Julien's 'poem' seriously enough as an attempt at a poem to criticise it on aesthetic grounds rather than just 'humouring' him, like he actually believed the kid would come up with something good eventually even if he was mad. And as for all the other scenes of 'cruelty', how do we know they were actually happening? The 'wrestling' scene was good too - most of the reviews I've seen cite it as 'evidence of the dysfunctional family pressures etc', but I thought it just showed people who couldn't possibly understand each other, much less communicate, but (crucially) at least making an attempt - ie, I thought the family were really trying to help get through to him, and vice versa. (One thing I notice about Korine's films is the physicality in them, ppl are always getting into fights unpredictably, it adds an edge of uneasiness - I wonder if this is because Korine's pretty uneasy about the some perceived threat of mindless violence lurking under everything himself? It would make sense if this 'Fight Harm' thing was a 'Will'-like attempt to face down a fear of being randomly beaten up, and I would love to see that flick somebody, if he ever gets out of the nuthatch)