In this sensual experimental elegy by Harmony Korine, spellbinding infrared photography evokes a dreamlike portrait of a tormented assassin.
Even after a couple of weeks of watching Harmony Korin, Aggro Dr1ft, I still have no idea what to think of it. I can’t tell if it falls into the satirical masterpiece of “it’s so bad it’s good” or if it’s just a really bad movie. Even the great and powerful cinephile website of Letterboxd is all over the place with ratings. But one thing is clear to me, is that Aggro Dr1ft felt like Tommy Wiseau, The Room, and I can’t tell if that is a good or a bad feeling.
Aggro Dr1ft has comedically little character development and narrative in its movie. Nothing has convinced me that our troubled assassin is the self-dubbed “world’s greatest assassin”. From his dad-bod to him hyping himself up and flashing his guns everywhere, only to not pull the trigger or mess up his assassination attempt, our assassin sucks at his job. Then when our character does talk it has some of the most nonsensical dialogue you can imagine. At many points, I had no idea what the characters were saying and I was getting annoyed by the obvious ADR (audio dialogue replacement). Furthermore, when you have an antagonist who just runs around in his underwear “yelling I am going to kill you” and “I smell your fear” while thrusting his hips back and forth and waving a sword around, it is hard not to laugh either with or at the movie.
Outside of its nonsensical filmmaking, it does have one unique characteristic which is its cinematography. Aggro Dr1ft was shot using an infrared camera and then layered with what appears to be AI-generated graphics out of a PS1 game, which makes for a unique cinematic experience, for better or worse. However, I respect Korin for taking a leap of faith with this movie’s cinematography, as no one else has done this before and this will most likely be the only time someone will shoot a motion picture like this. So the movie does have some ingenuities behind it.
Overall, I don’t know what to think of Aggro Dr1ft. I don’t know if this is a satirical masterpiece or a really bad movie, but I will leave it up to you if you dare.
My Rating: ?
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