2023 was a significant year for cinema. Along with productions grinding to a halt amid the writer’s and actor’s strikes in Hollywood, the year was also marked by numerous blockbuster movies, with crowds packing theaters for the Barbenheimer face-off. Films like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 also dominated the box office. Another film stood out for entirely different reasons, leaving many critics and audience members questioning whether it was even a movie at all, and it’s finally streaming.
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Director Harmony Korine’s (Gummo, Spring Breakers) experimental film Aggro Dr1ft is now streaming on Kanopy, the free streaming video service available to library card holders. In Korine’s own words, Aggro Dr1ft is a “vibe-based” film that came together on “just ideas and a basic story.” Starring Jordi Mollà and Travis Scott, the film is set in Miami’s criminal underworld and centers around an assassin on a mission to kill a demonic crime lord. The story is told in a non-linear fashion that, combined with the hallucinatory infrared filming, results in a truly bizarre, confusing, and controversial feature.
Per the movie’s logline, “Shot entirely in infrared and drenched in surreal digital textures, this experimental crime fantasy from Harmony Korine (The Beach Bum) follows veteran hitman BO (Jordi Mollà) as he stalks a demonic target through a neon-drenched Miami underworld. With cryptic visions, whispered prophecies, and AI warped landscapes shaping his descent, BO drifts between hyperviolence and existential dread. As reality blurs and the line between hunter and prey dissolves, the mission spirals into a fever dream of chaos and code.”
There’s no question that Aggro Dr1ft is one of the most bizarre releases of 2023, in large part due to its lack of a traditional narrative, visual aesthetics, and repetitive sounds and dialogue. Korine even admitted to The Japan Times that he “wasn’t even sure if it was a movie,” as he was instead “trying to create something that was beyond an articulation or a narrative, and was closer to a vibe-based cinema … close to being inside a game.”
The experimental nature of the film ultimately led to some pretty mixed reviews. Aggro Dr1ft is certified rotten on Rotten Tomatoes with a 41% critics’ score and a consensus that states the film’s “innovative and eye-catching visuals are largely undermined by a frequently inscrutable story that aims for provocation but too often frustrates and annoys.” Critics said the film begs a debate about what is and isn’t considered art, while some said Aggro Dr1ft is at least worth watching once for the otherworldly experience, with The Daily Beast describing it as “a provocation, a stunt, a dare, and an experiment—as well as a bold one-of-a-kind experience that…shouldn’t be missed.”
New on Kanopy
Aggro Dr1ft is one of several movies newly streaming on Kanopy. The service boasts a library of more than 30,000 films and TV shows, all of which are available to stream for free using your local library card. Like other streaming service, Kanopy’s content catalog updates monthly. See a list of some of the latest arrivals to Kanopy below.
The Last Enemy
Anora
The Return
Still Alice
The Rebound
Monsters at Large
Friends with Kids
Angel Face
All is Lost
Kon-Tiki
Ancient Aliens
100 Foot Wave
Pee-wee as Himself
The Pink Panther
The Pianist
Clueless
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Courtesy of Crunchyroll
