YMMV / Julien Donkey-Boy

• Awesome Music: The main theme, a solo guitar piece by David Pajo from Slint.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Due to the film's non-standard narrative and arcane subject matter, pretty much any scene could qualify, but Werner Herzog's monologue about Dirty Harry stands out. The scene where he recites a strange German poem while getting a haircut from Pearl also counts, if only for the odd camera movement.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Julien's father goes through extreme mood swings during the movie. When he's not performing strange acts like drinking from his sandal or dancing alone while wearing a gas mask, he's occasionally depressed for no reason and becomes abusive to his kids. He's also prone to go on bizarre tangents and will occasionally try to bribe Julien into dressing in his mother's clothes. Together, these actions suggest bipolar disorder.
• Gut Punch: Pearl's miscarriage. Ewen Bremner and Chloe Sevigny's performances in this scene are among the most emotionally raw ever put to film.

• Mood Whiplash: Frequent, matching the oft-mood swinging characters. A notable example is Julien's Tears of Joy at a Black Gospel Choir smash cutting into him beating Chris in a quickly cut style.
• One-Scene Wonder: The Cigarette-Eater. Once seen, he tends to stick in the memory.
  • The little boy with the turtle at the beginning, whom Julien may (or may not) have killed.
  • And of course, the black albino straight from Alabama.
• Squick:
  • The entire dynamic of Julien's family. Their mom died in childbirth, causing Pearl to roleplay as Julien's mom for him to help him cope with reality, which ended up becoming a sexual relationship. Meanwhile, Dad attempts at one point to pay Julien's younger brother Chris to dress up in her clothes and dance with him, saying he looks the most like her.
  • Julien drooling directly into the camera in the opening scene.
  • Julien's ambiguously romantic relationship with a 12 year old girl at the home he works at.
  • Julien cleaning his grill in a glass of watermelon juice.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The ending. Pearl loses her baby in a skating accident, Julien steals the corpse from the morgue, and then rides the bus all the way home where he curls up in his bed and stares unblinking into the camera. It might be the darkest thing Harmony Korine has ever filmed.
  • The scene where Dad destroys Pearl's harp and verbally eviscerates both her and Julien, causing Julien to have a self-harming emotional meltdown. This scene also implies that Dad's abuse is the reason Julien and Pearl are in an incestuous relationship.
• Vindicated by History: Greeted with mostly negative reviews when it first came out, Julien Donkey-Boy is now routinely spoken of with as much reverence as Gummo.

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