Spring Breakers sees Harmony Korine return with his tongue in cheek and his finger still firmly on the pulse in a compelling film that is loud and provocative with a tone somewhere between Beach Party MTV and early Criss Cuningham. A sun-soaked binge of a movie filled with booze, drugs and commercial dub-step.

Teen stars Selena Gomez, Venessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson join Korine’s wife Rachel to play four young and beautiful college students. After holding up a restaurant, the girls set off on a spring break trip of partying and debauchery. Following a police bust the spring breakers find themselves in prison and, refusing to call their parents, they’re at a loss. That’s until Alien (a very on form James Franco) decides to bail them out and take them under his wing, not realising what he’s dealing with until the girls begin to pull the strings.

Korine’s casting is quite a phenomenon. Franco may at times seem to be playing out his career like some half-baked project from a first year art student, appearing in General Hospital and jumping on any piece of beat generation fluff he can get his hands on, but when he wants to he can be terrific. Here we find him channelling Texas' resident wierdo Riff Raff to great effect. Following her exHigh School Musical co-star Zac Efron (who appeared in Bahrani’s decent if disappointing At Any Price at this very festival) Vanessa Hudgens makes her own punt at artistic integrity, joining the squeaky clean Benson and Gomez in what is a major casting coup for Korine. In interviews the girls have claimed it’s just a movie about partying and perhaps they’re right but there is a real sense of art imitating life, Korine luring them in to all this moral ambiguity in exchange for a shot at credibility. Korine himself must have been bighting his tongue with delight as the swarm of tween fans greeted them on the red carpet. How this film is marketed should make interesting viewing, it might even land him his first real dose of mainstream attention.

It was 1995 when a 19 year old Korine blew everyone away with his script for Kids. Around the same time Spike Jonze, with his video for Sabotage, was seen as the godfather of Music Television. The station is by all means a shadow of its former self but how strange that 17 years on it would be Korine who would have more to say about its current audience. He always seemed to be a cut above those west coast generation X-ers, refusing to deal in half measures with films like Julien Donkey Boy, Trash Humpers and the mighty Gummo. With Spring Breakers he could well claim himself to be among America’s greatest agent provocateurs. A fearless, uncompromising director whose work feels as fresh today as it felt almost two decades ago.

La Cinquieme Saison uses pagan religion, plague imagery and a sinister rural backdrop to deliver a masterpiece of apocalyptic terror and ambiguity.

We are welcomed with open arms to a country town in the Ardennes. It’s the end of winter and we are shown a living, breathing landscape full of life, young love and a tender warm community. The town are gathering to celebrate the death of Father Winter with a giant sacrificial bonfire. But all is not well. The people stand by but fire won’t catch. It proves a dark omen for the townspeople as we enter spring. Crows stop crowing; Cows cease to lactate and the crops are nowhere to be seen. Some are more affected than others and when rationing is suggested old human-nature rears its ugly head and says no. This starts a downward spiral as the town descends deeper into hunger, fear and madness.

The story of the town is wonderfully mirrored in the two young lovers we meet at the beginning. What starts with the most tender of kisses is quickly tarnished and gradually rots as one takes the role of a ‘has’ and the other a ‘has not’.

Directors Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodsworth seem to hold little hope for puny human inventions like love and community. They believe when the chips are down the humans will eat each other. It’s a popular tool of the post-apocalyptic world, it’s certainly been done before and no doubt it will be used again but in this film it fiendishly complements the dark rural element. Indeed a few influences are on show: There’s plenty of Lars Von Trier going on in its music and cinematography but this is most definitely a beast of its own. Each shot is a balanced, meticulously planned painting and the music turns the stomach with every note.

The film stays wonderfully unpredictable right to the end; a beautifully produced and horrifying piece of work. The film is this critic’s frontrunner for the top prize on Saturday and although it would be nice to see Harmony Korine or Ulrich Seidl lifting the statue, this is without doubt a worthy winner. A second screening is scheduled for 8:30 today so fear not if you see a slightly groggy Irishman wandering the streets of the Lido.

Following Paradise: Love, the first of his trilogy, Ulrich Seidl is back with his second instalment. Paradise: Faith is a wonderfully dark and sordid exploration of humanity at its most bizarre.

We meet Anna, a religious fundamentalist and spreader of the good word whose feelings for her saviour are far from sacred. Anna attempts to keep her emotions at bay by balancing her private moments of weakness with horrendous sessions of self-flagellation. Despite all this and in a quite welcoming twist, Anna is strangely likable. While being in no way relatable she has an earnestness which borders on endearing.

Anna makes the occasional house call, converting and blessing whatever she can, but aside from these excursions the bulk of the film takes place in her apartment. An oppressive and static world precisely framed with strict right angles and parallel lines. The colour system manages to excite and numb accordingly. A dreamlike pale blue for Anna’s prayer group; a stale orange for the kitchen; and a muddy olive green for the bedroom, the setting of her most intimate and base moments.

It all may sound like a crude exercise in provocation but the real dark pleasures of this film do not lie in its tragedy but in its humour. Even those with the most lax sense of PCness won’t see it coming and just wait till Anna’s crippled, Muslim and very horny husband shows up. What a pair these absurd humans make. Physical humour just doesn’t get any darker.

Paradise: Faith is destined to polarize audiences. I challenge anyone to see it and not come out strongly opinionated, one way or another. It’s perhaps a well-worn cliché but a necessary one none the less; any work of art which can garner these sorts of reactions, good or bad, is most definitely worthwhile. This is film making at its most bold and daring.

BACK FROM THE BEYOND

This morning my mind felt spent. The first three days of the Venice Film Festival had been barnstormers. From Demme’s entertaining portrait of Enzo Avitabile to the pitch black humour ofParadise (Faith) on Friday night, aside from a few drawbacks and disappointments it was all going so well. What followed next was two days of what can only be described as bewilderment. Un-relatable characters and some frankly confusing plotlines had left me jaded. Was this possible? Bad films! At a film festival! Or, and I feared this most, had the sponge in my head simply soaked up all it could soak?

Then came today: A water soaked and busy excursion to Venice did little to liven things up early on but the first viewing of the day would soon change all that. With the help of some guns, a power drill and a particularly nasty pitching machine the mighty Takeshi Kitano blew all the cobwebs away. His new film Outrage Beyond is tough, blood soaked and an absolute blast.

The film is set in the classically uber-male world of the Tokyo Yakuza, a world of big men, solid wood and growling voices.  We are shown a system which is very much in order; Mob bosses and police seemingly working in harmony and reaping the rewards; eradicating any foe with ease. That is before a vengeful Omoto (Kitano) is released from jail and the flood gates open. But not to worry, as the history of double crossings  and betrayals is extensively rolled out in the opening third we are treated to the occasional caffeine shot of mega violence to keep us very much alert. Kitano has no problem with that particular task, bursting ears with pleasure with each punch that’s thrown.

When the last gunshot rang out the crowd rose to its feet. The longest and loudest ovation I’ve experienced this past week followed. And so it was, in a packed out Sala Grande on reassuringly grainy 35mm and with the great man himself in attendance I found exactly what I was looking for. A true breath of fresh air.

Sarah Polley’s third feature after 2006’s deeply moving Away From Her and last year’s puzzlingly drab Take This Waltz is a fascinating and emotional look at family life and the choices and random occurrences which ultimately make us who we are.

A candid- warts and all- documentary, Polley creates a collage of different mediums and perspectives to tell us the story of her family’s past and her own unique place in it. Through the story of her deceased mother, a vibrant and charismatic woman, we discover much about Polley’s upbringing and the fascinating story of how she came to be. Interviews from her various family members and associates are mixed with super 8 home movie, an ever enduring tool. Her family are a bright and lively crowd and the interviews flow with ease. They are funny, endearing and insightful. Not convinced by the clarity of memory, Polley attempts to show a balanced and fair portrayal of the past by giving everyone involved a chance to have their say and fight their corner. An effort which she admits is ultimately in vein given her eventual power in the editing room.

As the cast of interviewees flows by the real star emerges in Polley’s father, a retired actor and a real gent. His interviews are strong and their relationship is the most significant but his narration is what drives it all home.  Elegantly written and wonderfully delivered as his daughter sits recording. It lifts the film to a different level and shows us a window to that most endearing of bonds.