Spring Breakers
Written and Directed by Harmony Korine
USA, 2013.
If
a message lingers beneath the kaleidoscopic surface of the film’s candy-coated
visuals, it’s that our new young generation—obsessed with reality trash TV,
sexual deviance without consequences, and rap music that glorifies drug use—is falling into an endless pit of superficial, pop-culture garbage.
Filmmaker Harmony Korine, better known as the writer of Kids—a breakout film about sexual experimentation and the spread of
HIV—has written and directed a film about smart college girls doing dumb things
to fit in with the privileged “it” crowd. There’s a lot to admire about Spring Breakers; Harmony Korine is one
of the few artist to capture our youth’s degradation, which may or may not have
to do with media influences.
The film is about four college girls,
ironically played by “tweenie” idols, who decide to rob a diner to fund their
spring break trip to South Florida. Eventually, they end up in jail (realities
that rap artist don’t talk about) and get bonded out by an eccentric drug
dealer, Alien, played to weird perfection by James Franco.
Scene
after scene, the camera shows girls pouring liquor between their unnaturally large
breasts and hunk men licking it off their body. The scenes that capture spring breakers gone
wild is not meant to be a realistic portrait, but more of a commentary on how
our media glorifies a party lifestyle; and since these characters are suckers
for anything that feels good and looks good, then spring break is a dream come
true. Sure, we want our parents to know where we’re going, but what we’re doing—kinky sex, heavy drugs
and armed robbery—those dark habits are left with the pink elephant in the
room.
When
the girls fall under the spell of Alien, we realize they aren't victims of a
con artist, but instead, they’re truly infatuated with the seedy, “gangsta”
lifestyle. James Franco steals the show and exudes a one-of-kind personality.
Franco’s Alien is funnier and more bizarre than his stoner pot dealer in Pineapple Express. These characters are
distasteful and ultimately, one-dimensional, but that’s Harmony Korine’s way of
satirizing the so-called right-of-passage of spring break. These girls live in
a world where they feel entitled to an endless string of hedonistic pleasures. They push themselves until they suffer violent
consequences. How far is enough? Never underestimate today’s youthful culture.
We’re white, we’re privileged, and we’re ready to play until the wheels fall
off.
The
cinematography is eye-popping; Harmony Korine creates a vivid color wheel of
pop-like images, which greatly contrast from the dark tone of the film. However
the look, the story gets very redundant. For example, there are too many scenes
of the girls frolicking around in bikinis, holding automatic weapons, for no
other point but to stretch the length. Once an idea is expressed, the narrative
should move forward, but in Spring
Breakers, we’re bombarded by the same images over and over. The first half
presents a fascinating, bold and sickly funny satire, but towards the end, the
tone gets dull and icky.
**1/2
(out of four stars)
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