Much like last year’s “Aggro Dr1ft,” Harmony Korine landed another one of his EDGLRD movies in an out-of-competition midnight slot at Venice, and the reactions out of the premiere were again polarizing.
Described as an interactive thriller, Korine’s “Baby Invasion” is a film about home invaders, shot from a first-person shooter perspective. The footage was created using six body cams (one worn by Korine himself). Oh, and the invaders' faces have been treated with AI technology so that they appear as babies.
Although a cut of “Baby Invasion” was shown, and reviews have been written by critics, Korine confessed at Venice that festival audiences will only be getting a “base layer” of the overall experience as he shot over 80 hours of usable footage.
Korine went as far as to cast real people who did home invasions, in key roles, and much like he did with “Aggro Dr1ft,” didn’t use a traditional script to shoot the film.
Some of the cast were actually people that tried to rob a lot of friends of mine […] Once they were arrested, we cast them and it just added that extra sense of reality.
I’m not sure if “Baby Invasion” will find distribution, and I hope it does, but don’t be surprised if Korine, much like he did with “Aggro Dr1ft,” ends up bringing this one on a strip club tour nationwide.
These last five years, Korine has been all about his company EDGLRD. He’s not interested in making conventional cinema anymore. He recently mentioned that Terrence Malick wrote a script for him to direct, but odds are low he’ll ever tackle that one. Up next for Korine is the anime gangster-thriller “The Trap.”
Some brief footage of “Baby Invasion” is available to watch online. A new poster has been unveiled in anticipation for its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.