Stockholm Film Festival

The film is about two families who are competing for the title of ''The Filthiest People Alive''.
On the one side is Divine. She lives in a mobile home, painted in pink and grey, together with her life companion, Cotton, her retarded son, Crackers, and her senile mother, Edie. They are the reigning title holders when the film begins. On the other side are Connie and Reymond Marble, who are running an illegal adoption service. They kidnap young girls and the servant, Channing, make them pregnant. Then they sell the offspring to prospective lesbians. The profit is used for financing their heroin business in the
town's junior schools. Marbles is extremely jealous of Divine and her bad reputation and the fight for the title begins.
John Waters made ”Pink Flamingos ”on a budget of $12,000. His father put up the money, but refused to watch the film. The style is reminiscent of a chaotic home video, where all the rules about making films have been consistently disregarded. Today the film seems more naively charming than repulsive.
When Waters made the film in 1971 he was heavily influenced by the Manson murders, which resulted in a few obscure, violent scenes. They were removed from the original version, but have been restored to the new version. The sound is also much improved, and a newly recorded commentary from the director has been included in the new release.
”Pink Flamingos ”has caused a lot of problems for censors and has been screened mostly at film clubs and such like. This is hardly surprising with scenes like Divine eating dog shit, two lovers fucking with a live chicken between them, a bizarre blow job scene between Divine and her son...
However, according to Waters the film was only intended to entertain: ''I wanted to do something extreme. Something that was impossible to make any worse.'' Well, well...
Frank Johnsen

Premiärstatus

Nordisk premiär

Medverkande

Divine

Producent

John Waters

Manus

John Waters

Foto

John Waters/David Insley (1997 Narration)

Talat språk

English

 

Andra filmer från sektionen Twilight Zone

Se alla festivalfilmer från 1997