Spring Breakers

The final form of the film is the polar opposite of what I originally expected from it. I went into it expecting pure teenage masturbation over the backside of Selena Gomez and her friends, which someone like Stifler would have summed up simply with the words "boobs, titties, hooters, knockers", but in the end I got a truly serious criminal plot with an execution so provocative, novel and ironic that it was simply irresistible. Korine laughed in my face, filmed it in his own way and according to his own rules, and did it extremely well. It's a pity that by the end he went a bit overboard with the laughs and that he repeated some of the "jokes" so often that they lost all credibility. And it's a shame that Selena packed up halfway through the film and never showed up again :-) Quite an interesting surprise, but unfortunately it doesn't deserve more than 55% after the first viewing. (2013-06-29)

This spiritual film for a world without God reveals to viewers a planet made up of dreams in music-video hyper-reality that can actually be tangible. It’s enough to just strike the right pose and time is suddenly transformed from an flow into unnoticeable a looping collage, where minutes do not tick by, but pulse like neon lights. However, this can all dissipate very rapidly – all it takes is to step out of the pose for a moment, but then there is now way back. On the cultural/generational surface, Korine’s DJ-like spinning isn’t subversive in such a way that it would result in an appealing gesture as in the previous generational film Kids, written by Korine, but exactly the opposite. Instead of a warning, Spring Breakers is an intoxicating and sensually intense temptation. It is a materialisation of the enchanted circle of hyped-up posing encouraged by pop culture and becomes a part of that. If gangstas have been watching Scarface on loop up to this point, now college kids will put on Spring Breakers as the ultimate demonstration of how to get properly pissed off. It’s absurd to read reflections whose writers take an elitist approach to defining themselves against a supposed audience that will leave the cinema annoyed or devastated because they had expected another Disney farce with Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, and yet they enthusiastically chant, “Spring break forever, bitches.” They thus oddly illustrate that Korine is not in the position of a moraliser or an unbiased observer, or a biased connoisseur in the mould of John Waters. On the contrary, he represents for viewers the same kind of devil/enticer that Alien is for the film’s female protagonists. Those who don’t escape in time will give themselves over to him without reservation. (2013-04-04)

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. (2013-07-19)

The form slightly prevails over the content, which got me. Great, atmospheric music enhances the recurring shots, jumps in time continuity, and other elements that are used - sound suppression and its replacement with musical accompaniment, cutting from detailed shots to distant ones, etc. Everything leads to the fact that the film has exactly the right depressive tone that was supposed to affect the viewer. Exposed breasts and alcohol orgies, which accompany us throughout the film, are ultimately more of a mockery, underlining the fact that such entertainment is not really it. Selena Gomez, or rather her character, says one beautiful sentence: "I want to go home. I didn't imagine it like this. It's not fair, it shouldn't have been like this." It shouldn't have been like this, at least according to the posters, but the result is excellent. Surprisingly good. (2013-11-12)

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. (2013-08-22)