If one had to guess which filmmaker a film journalist could catch themselves conducting an interview with at two in the morning, at a table inside a hotel bar overlooking the Venice canal, Harmony Korine would probably be the most likely choice.
Coming off the world premiere of his new project “Baby Invasion” at the Venice Film Festival, the innovative, enfant terrible filmmaker is still struck by the heat inside the Sala Grande (“It was like a sauna,”) but he’s also been processing the joy it felt to receive one of those signature applauses that lasts so long, security had to shut it down — especially for a film like this.
“I never seen anything like that in a place like that,” said Korine, back at the festival one year after premiering “Aggro Dr1ft” there, the first film produced under his new EDGLRD banner. An 80-minute film inspired by first-person shooter games, “Baby Invasion” follows a group of mercenaries that livestream their violent robberies of the rich and powerful, using baby faces as avatars to mask their identity.
Now decades into his career, Korine has been working even harder to break conventions, becoming highly inspired by the entertainment that has overtaken the attention of today’s youth, such as livestreams and video games. “Right before the premiere I was just playing ‘Fortnite,’ and I just got a Victory Royale with 14 kills, and I was so happy,” said the director with a big smile.
Earlier in the day, he had made headlines at the festival press conference for the film for his quotes about Hollywood being in a crumbling state, and how livestreaming star “IShowSpeed is the new Tarkovsky,” a take he still stands by. “He’s making four-hour streams. They move at a similar pace. And it’s just really, what is a movie? It’s impossible. What is it? It’s just anything that’s 90 minutes,” he said. “Maybe the greatest movie ever is just a blank screen. You know what I mean? The greatest epic is maybe just a black screen.”
Ultimately, Korine knows that if he, as someone with canonized films like “Kids,” “Gummo,” and “Spring Breakers” under his belt, is still feeling drudgery around the standard means by which films are produced and distributed — “or that the process is too bureaucratic and it’s not enjoyable” — then he can start to see the reasons why a Gen Z auteur has yet to emerge. “[If] you’re not messing with the form a little bit, then what’s the point?”
Expanding on his points at the press conference, “What I was trying to say is that Hollywood would be wise to embrace the youth and embrace different forms of less linear media because their connection to their audience is really immense, and they’re extremely creative. It’s just not in a conventional way,” said the filmmaker, who is actually in touch with both Speed and his contemporary Kai Cenat for future collaborations. “You have to start to think about how do you not push away all these creative kids, and why are they going into game development and tech and livestreaming? Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s actually a good thing.”
If there really are potential Gen Z auteurs in the world, “they just go to other forms. The creativity is the same. It’s just, there’s too many gatekeepers in Hollywood,” said Korine. “It’s too much. … There are too many hurdles. And then if a kid can just take a camera and point it at himself and start to speak and live stream and then connect with massive audiences, why would you even think about that?”
A year in, EDGLRD has been just the remedy for his disillusion, especially with how the company casts a much wider net of creatives to work on their projects (including previous IndieWire editor Eric Kohn). “It’s closer to a design collective really. It’s just a lot of my favorite game developers and technologists and coders and hackers and graphic designers all come together, and you start to see what’s missing. You see what can be built. You dream it up and then you make it possible,” said the director.
“Baby Invasion” has been in line with the vision of the company Korine put forth last fall. “We’re making films now in gaming engines and working on a movie now that takes place in your living room, or in your bedroom. A horror film where the characters pop out of the closet,” he said. “We’re at a place now where the level of tech is really starting to parallel my dreams. And this idea of world creation, and even what comes after linear cinema is exciting. You try and imagine ‘How do you deconstruct it, how do you mess with it? How do you create mini worlds?’ But doing a lot of that in rooms with our coders and VFX and artificial intelligence.”
He is beginning to describe his new films as “vibe-based cinema,” with the thought that they can be post-articulation. “It does tell a story, but it’s really meant to wash over you. It’s closer to ‘How do you create a digital hypnosis or a tech drug?,’” said Korine of “Baby Invasion.”
The challenge he issues for other directors who may be looking to follow his lead: “Don’t even think about films. I would just say clear your mind and try to create a world. And try to produce things that have a feeling,” he said. “See if you could create another dimension.”
For as high-minded as some of his ambitions sound, all in all, “I’m really just trying things,” said Korine. “To be honest, I’m mostly trying to just have fun.”
