Spring Breakers

A kind of Kids meets The Doom Generation for our decade (and maybe also for kids who are puzzled when you mention The Doom Generation). A fine piece of subversive pop art. A cinematic poem, at once sunny and oh so dark. We are paid to throw words at it, but the truth is that Spring Breakers is immune to words. Its director, Harmony Korine, expresses himself – with the help of the Brussels cinematic wizard Benoît Debie – in sound (Skrillex and Britney Spears), colour (neon, Florida sunshine, confectionery…) and images. Images of quivering breasts and buttocks during orgies of drink, drugs, sex, and music. Every year, a school break sees young Americans flock en masse to the beaches of Florida to party as if their lives depended on it. For days on end, they go wild, get plastered, dance, and have sex – and finally head back home or to school as if nothing had happened. Half crude and lewd behaviour, half carnal ritual.

The visually alluring video clip of the partying moves up a gear when James Franco makes his appearance. You have to see this to believe it: he plays a white gangsta rapper. A hedonist who has wholeheartedly embraced the dark side, he bails the four female leads from jail and takes them in tow. The four, friends who believe they are entitled to a spring break, are played by Disney bimbos like Vanessa Hudgens and Justin Bieber’s ex, Selena Gomez. Fortunately for Korine, corruption is not a criminal offence. Without being judgemental or being untrue to its pop poetry, the film’s glorification of an ultra-superficial party culture gradually turns into a questioning of it. Hypnotic.

Spring Breakers ●●●
US, 2012, dir.: Harmony Korine, act.: James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, 93 min.

> READ THE INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR HARMONY KORINE