‘Just pretend it’s a video game.
Like you’re in a f*cking movie’
–Spring Breakers
This film is teensploitation at its very best, where Hamony Korine’s dark comedy, Spring Breakers is filled with violence, vulgar sentiments and surrealistic imagery – all of which contributes toward a 94-minute on-screen drug trip.
Starring Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens and
Rachel Korine, the story depicts four college-girls who desire freedom from
their mundane lives. The solution to their problem: A spring break vacation.
Using money from a restaurant robbery, the girls successfully make their way to
Florida for a spiritual awakening.
Prepare yourselves for a ‘Girls Gone Wild’-cross-LMFAO music
video, where both realistic and unrealistic elements of spring break are
depicted through excessive partying on the beach filled with booze, boobs and
bongs. Can you say heaven? To their disappointment, reality kicks in for a
total of 10-minutes, and the good life stops when they are arrested for
underage drinking and narcotics.
Fortunately, James Franco’s, Alien, readily bails them out
of jail. From this point onwards, we are shown the limits of each girl and how
far they are willing to keep living in their psychedelic-lucid dream. Faith (Gomez),
is the first to wake up after the reality of being arrested had miraculously knocked
some sense into her. She is the first to express her concerns over Alien’s
sleazy, “started from the bottom, now we’re here” lifestyle, begging the girls
to go home with her.
Cue the dangerous lifestyle of drug-dealing and gang-rivalry
between master and mentor, to which the rest of the girls become willingly
caught up in. The use of voice-overs in the film is Korine’s way of allowing
the audience to meet him half-way. The phone-calls made by each girl to their families
suggest that they are having a magical time, meeting amazing people who have
change their lives. Whilst, they are explaining the superficial layer of events
that have happened to them, it is a clear juxtaposition with regards to the
hyper sexuality, drug abuse and videogame-like violence that we see on film.
Stylistically, the contrast of neon-colours and soft hues of
Spring Breakers adds to the surrealistic
feel of the film. The musical score by Skrillex further perpetuates the liquid
narrative of the film. The only message that you will preserve is the line,
“Spring break, spring break forever”, as it is embedded into your brain from
the very beginning of the movie, acting as a constant reminder of the
unrealistic freedom that the girls dream about.
- Written by Kathleen Ng
0 comments:
Post a Comment