Spring Breakers

(Harmony Korine/2012/USA)

You know those young, gaudy, reckless American hedonist students that spend their Easter holidays in an alcohol and drug binged haze of moronic hollering and casual sex? Harmony Korine made a film about those idiots but couldn’t sustain the narrative long enough before having to weld it to some bullshit about white gangster rappers. The whole film is an exercise in glitzy surface cool in an effort to make some sub textual comment on American youth culture but it gets tired and tiring very, very quickly. Outside of Kids, which he wrote and is brilliant, I haven’t seen any other Harmony Korine films but am aware he’s lauded in various circles. If this is what he’s amounted to in the near 20 years since writing Kids I won’t be rushing to fill in the gaps.

(0/5)  

The Missouri Breaks

(Arthur Penn/1976/USA)

Part screwball comedy, part counter culture free love romance and part revenge tale, but all western, The Missouri Breaks comes under the heading of mid 70’s cinematic curiosity and is often overlooked. Starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson it packs a mighty punch of idiosyncratic acting that adds to its charm as a result. Nicholson exudes his quirked, smiling rogue shtick as Tom Logan but you’d be forgiven for thinking he plays things straight in comparison to the calculated eccentricities of Brando’s Lee Clayton character. Entering the film like a wild west jester with an atrociously put on Irish accent the wild, farcical elements are slowly pared away, even the accent, as Clayton moves closer and closer to being the assassin he’s hired to be. It’s hugely enjoyable and just one element in this hot pot of a film that also boasts a supporting cast of Randy Quaid and Harry Dean Stanton. Kathleen Lloyd is excellent as a foil to Nicholson in the romantic sub plot too, my first time seeing her onscreen. Special mention has to go for John Williams score though, it is a fantastic mesh of American folk and bluegrass with what can only be described as 70’s funk synth and at times veers towards free jazz noodlings but all in a hillbilly twanged vibe. Well worth a watch and contains one of the best lines ever delivered in a film:

Logan: It’s the way it happens, isn’t it, Cal?

Cal: I wouldn’t know, not since that dog of mine put his tongue on the butter.

(3.5/5)

Suntan

(Argyris Papadimitropoulos/2016/Greece)

Kostis, one of the unhealthiest looking Greek men I’ve ever seen, lands on a small island during the winter season to take up a position as doctor. He settles into the quiet, traditional community and meets some locals one of which ensures him the summer season brings plenty of opportunity with women. Kostis is middle aged and a bit of a loner. During the summer he encounters Anna, a twenty something tourist when he treats her for a bad cut on her leg. This is the starting point from which he slowly ingratiates himself into her circle of travelling companions. Neglecting his practice he spends more and more time on the beach, drinking and carousing with his new found friends. By night he parties further and fuels an infatuation with Anna which is casually and maybe naively reciprocated by her. Not realising the depth of feeling he is nurturing for her Anna sleeps with him but when Kostis becomes possessive and angry she cuts off from him. Now alienated by the gang he begins to properly spiral into an implosion of self destructive and sociopathic behaviour. The final scenes are nightmarish and Kostis eventually breaks down realising how repugnant he actually is. 

On the surface Suntan is an examination of loneliness and a cautionary tale about awareness of whom you’re keeping company with. But it could also be taken as allegorical to Greece. Kostis is embedded in an old fashioned society, one stuck in its ways but one which values the community and its traditions. He abandons his responsibility to this community much as the plutocratic Greek administration has done to its citizens. Anna and her friends are young, modern and sexy. They live it up on holiday and Kostis’ beguilement with them destroys him. His unhealthy pallor worsens the more involved he becomes. It might be a stretch but I see a parable of the recent economic collapse as a subtext in Suntan. Outside of these musings it’s a great film that builds steadily to a catastrophic and unsettling finale.

(3.5/5)