SXSW 2013 Review: Spring Breakers
Modern art makes me uncomfortable. I often feel like an imposter and intruder at museums, as I scan the wall, desperately hoping I’m not found out. Hoping no one asks me what I think of a piece and finds out I have no idea how to process the information. It’s just not a language I’m comfortable with. So much modern art seems to be trying to create meaning in a purely sensory way. I don’t operate well in a sensory world. I tend to be introverted and withdrawn. I interact with my environment in an intellectual and emotional way, but always a step removed. I don’t seek out hallucinatory or mind altering drugs. I have a hard time listening to many forms of electronic music whose main purpose to move you on a physical level. I rarely let myself just experience, I always analyze. I need a narrative and a context.
As such, I have been guilty of dismissing many forms of this sensory art, whether it be music or painting or film. I’ve called it lazy. I’ve accused it of only giving the illusion of meaning. But really the problem lies with me, and my dismissal is a shield.
So, what does that have to do with Spring Breakers? Spring Breakers, like most of Harmony Korine’s work, is an almost totally sensory experience. It is an art film through and through. It’s a barrage of color and shape and there is clearly meaning there, it just requires a different brain than mine. That’s not to say I don’t take anything away from it or that I dislike it, it just works on a different level than I’m comfortable with and requires extra effort on my part to derive meaning from it.
This may seem like a strange disclaimer for a movie that seems to be marketed as a fairly conventional crazy party film filled with popular starlets, but anyone familiar with Harmony Korine should know better. The eccentric writer/director has never been anything close to conventional and he doesn’t start here.
The story of Spring Breakers, such that there is one, is about a group of four girls who are sick of their town and mundane lives and dream of going to Florida to experience the spring break that MTV and Girls Gone Wild have always told them about. Unfortunately they don’t have the money, so they do the only logical thing and rob a fried chicken joint. Now, with pockets stuffed, they head down to Florida and quickly find themselves in with a bad crowd. Sex and violence ensues.
The way this story is conveyed is what makes Spring Breakers unique. Korine makes heavy use of repeated imagery and sounds. Sometimes the same line of dialog will loop 4 or 5 times, usually juxtaposed with imagery that reveals a hidden truth about what’s being said. Much of the dialog comes in the form of voice over. We hear the girls talking dreamily about how perfect and life changing this trip is. About all the great people they’ve met. About how they’ve finally found themselves. All the while we are seeing images of slow motion bouncing breasts as alcohol is poured over them or images of violent crime.
There are some truly depraved images and sequences in this film, but they are set against this backdrop of naive musings and pop music that you would expect to see in a typical teen coming of age comedy. The film clearly has something to say about the misguided aspirations of today’s youth and the perversion of the American dream. It shows that there is a very thin line between the mind of a teenage girl and a hardened gangster. It shows the hidden danger of innocuous pop culture. Does it really have a concise message about any of this? Maybe. I’m honestly not sure, but it gets you thinking.
This effect is reinforced by the casting of popular “safe” teen starlets. The casting of Disney alums Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens could be seen as a stunt, but I think it helps drive home a message. In a typical movie, these girls would be in over their head and see the folly of their ways but Spring Breakers is out to surprise you. It shows that the mind of a teenage girl “pretending it’s a video game” and trying to be a “bad bitch” is much more depraved and dangerous than a criminal just trying to make some illegitimate cash. Basically, Gucci Mane has got nothing on Ashley Benson.
The girls go a long way towards destroying their teen image, or at least using that image to disarm you. The only one who gets off clean is Selena Gomez who plays an innocent christian who gets out before things get too crazy. Gomez doesn’t so much as say a single curse word in the film, while her co-stars go all in with sex, nudity, drugs, violence, and true amorality.
Their spirit guide on this journey is James Franco as the rapping drug kingpin “gangsta mystic” Alien. Franco has an incredible amount of fun with the role and its exciting to watch. It’s impossible for him to be too over the top in a movie such as this and he takes that as a challenge.
All this bad behavior is backed by some truly incredible visuals and music. Korine has said that he wanted to world to look like it had been lit by candy and this definitely shows. The neon glow of the world calls to mind films like Enter the Void, which unsurprisingly used the same cinematographer, and the soundscape is straight out of Drive, which also utilized the genius of Cliff Martinez.
All in all, this is an audiovisual sensory experience that you should definitely seek out. You may, like me, have some trouble making logical sense of everything but perhaps approaching the movie intellectually is completely misguided. Just take it in and let yourself feel, if you can.
