Spring Breakers

Maybe a little more alternative than would be appropriate. From the audience's perspective, it’s a very confusing and "unpleasant" film that says quite a lot and even makes sense, but it’s poorly executed (the dramaturgy, the dialogues) and confusingly shot and unfinished (the editing, a number of wtf scenes) that only few will grasp and extract some of that film gold that is somewhere in there. Basically, a definition of today's era and youth, but the viewer could easily overlook it and end up thinking it was just mindless rubbish. (22/08/2013)

Enter the void of masturbation fantasies of lovers of beach bitch parties, tits, beer and guns aesthetics. A fluorescent dream on the edge between anti-thesis and interest in the artificial mythology of MTV clips. Hypnotic, engaging, provocative, subversive (Britney Spears meets Pussy Riot) and most importantly - James Franco was born for the role of the Alien. "This is the fuckin' American dream. This is my fuckin 'dream, y'all! All this sheeyit! Look at my sheeyit!" (30/03/2013)

Spring Breakers is a film about love and anarchy. In quotation marks and with the colour palette of Skittles. Korine uniquely blends a trashy plot and hyper-stylised MTV/R&B/YouTube aesthetics with a “flowing” form of storytelling, such as that found in The Tree of Life, for example. The unvarying, hypnotising trance rhythm, the constant repetition of lines (in the style of Chuck Palahniuk’s novellas) and the recycling of shots (or, as the case may be, the ways in which they are composed), leads to a dramaturgical compression of all scenes to the same level. They do not have any particular aim, like the female protagonists as they live out their permanent vacation, nor does the film escalate (conversely, the scenes in which we would expect more action are shot in an absolutely disinterested manner – see, for example, the restaurant robbery filmed in one shot through two panes of glass). Not much changes with the arrival of Alien, since gangsterism turns out be just as repetitive as anything else. It does not matter WHEN something happened or will happen. By jumping back and forth in time, the film rather prevents us from constructing a coherent storyline. The main thing is that something is happening right now. We are constantly kept in a state of being overwhelmed by audio-visual stimuli. Reality and make-believe, high and low, raw shots and lyrical shots all merge into one. This is clearly an attempt to approximate the way in which the female protagonists and Alien experience their surroundings, as the film takes on Alien’s perspective for some time in the second half. Conversely, Faith and Cotta’s return to reality is filmed altogether realistically, without visual enhancements creating the impression of an endless acid trip, when the colours seem to be bolder and the movement slower. Another subjectivising element is the voice-over (calls home) consisting of sentences that starkly contrast with what we see on the screen. Is this really how today’s youth imagine paradise? In this matter, Korine’s frantic postmodern collage is just as indeterminate as his attitude toward the female protagonists in unicorn ski masks and bikinis and toting Kalashnikovs like some sort of commercialised version of Pussy Riot. However, political matters are unimportant to them (instead of listening to a lecture on civil rights, they draw pictures of penises), as are gender issues (they do nothing to stop Alien from turning them into more of his “shit”). They want to destroy only because they do not see any sense in more established values. There is no doubt that we should despise them, but what they do is filmed so seductively… 80% (05/04/2018)

If anything succeeded, it was the mutilation of all audience expectations. Freshness, lightness, and natural passion are swept away by sophisticated and desperately repetitive grabbing of everything that dances, shakes, or moves in any unconventional way at all. And yet the real low blow is the script, clearly written by a thirteen-year-old boy desperately bored at home during the holidays whose abundant imagination is shaping a story about what the unattainable group of girls from the nearby high school might be doing at that moment. And it's probably not surprising that as a result, neither the characters, dialogue, story, or anything else actually work. Maybe just a few good songs that might evoke a summer mood under different circumstances and the hypnotic Cliff Martinez soundtrack, which is nonetheless running on empty in this mess. (19/07/2013)

An artistic rendition of a girls’ trip to Florida or a perverse probe into the world of booze, drugs and weapons? Korine wants to film art, but emptiness filled with repeating scenes or whole sentences, strange lighting and filters (at least imho) just isn’t art. Empty prattle about friendship, supported by emotional imbalance and a freaky ending that brings the young generation a message involving a really good slapping. A huge positive role is James Franco’s Alien who overacts as much as possible, enjoying the caricature of a white black gansta/rapper to the last drop. Ingenious manipulator or stoned nut-job? I’d like to see a prequel showing his rise. (01/09/2013)