The most mainstream film of perennial enfant terrible Harmony Korine (Gummo, 1997; Mister Lonely, 2007) is the most extreme for his protagonists: certainly for fresh Disney stars Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens and to some extent also for James Franco, who plays a violent drug dealer, but then hilariously over the top, as he takes the still-naive bikini girls in Florida under his wing.
With virtuosity, Korine films the gradual derailing of their pursuit of sex, alcohol and drugs, which forms the hollow core of the American ‘spring break’ tradition, in glossy, sexy, always undulating images (supported by Skrillex’s dubstep soundtrack). The only similarity with his previous feature, Trash Humpers (2009), shot on scratchy VHS tapes, is that the form again seamlessly matches the content. At the Venice festival, Korine called this a ‘liquid narrative’. ‘It’s meant to be about surfaces. The culture is about surfaces.’
Film details
- Country of production
- USA
- Year
- 2012
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2013
- Length
- 92'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
