‘Baby Invasion’ Trailer: Harmony Korine Harnesses AI for an Unsettling, Infant-Faced First-Person Shooter Game
The film creates an immersive experience by putting viewers in the shoes of the characters. The unique perspective offers a different way of storytelling. It allows the audience to feel the tension and adrenaline of the heist. The Venice Film Festival selection suggests that the film has potential for acclaim. The concept of the film sounds intriguing and captivating.
Harmony Korine's "Baby Invasion"
Harmony Korine's multimedia design collective EDGLRD may be a fresh-faced company, but the director is taking it one step further by using baby faces for AI avatars in his latest feature, "Baby Invasion." The ultra-realistic, multiplayer FPS game (which is also billed as a film) follows a group of mercenaries using baby faces as avatars to conceal their identity. The official synopsis reads: "Tasked with entering mansions of the rich and powerful, players must explore every rabbit hole before time runs out. As players navigate this dark web-leaked game, the boundaries between the digital and the real world blur."
"Baby Invasion" made its world premiere out of competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, where IndieWire film editor Ryan Lattanzio wrote in the review that Korine's pioneering vision purposefully subverts any audience expectations. Lattanzio described the film as disturbing and anti-audience, emphasizing that it challenges viewers' perceptions and reactions.
Review of "Baby Invasion"
"Harmony Korine is going to do whatever the hell he wants, and in the case of his disturbing and anti-audience movie 'Baby Invasion,' he turns the trigger-junkie protagonist at the top of a video game into the eyes and ears of a motion picture," Lattanzio wrote. "If that's what you call this disquieting and sickeningly compelling new project, framed from the perspective of an assassin pillaging shiny happy McMansions in Florida... 'Baby Invasion' is not interested at all in what you think about it. This film does not care if you watch it, react to it, or even if you are alive or dead."
Commenting on Korine's approach to filmmaking, Lattanzio stated, "'Baby Invasion' has a clear focus: It's to make you, the viewer, feel bad, and often wanting to beg to the screen, 'Please god let this end,' or perhaps more aptly, 'end me.' Here is a filmmaker who, these days, resents his own audience. Here is a movie for no one."
Harmony Korine's Vision
Korine's divisive "Aggro Dr1ft" was the first EDGLRD release; it debuted at Venice during the 2023 festival. Korine expressed his experimental approach to filmmaking, stating, "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. We're at a place now where the level of tech is really starting to parallel my dreams."
Korine elaborated on the evolving landscape of cinema, emphasizing the idea of world creation and the exploration of non-linear storytelling. He highlighted the collaborative process with technology experts to create immersive experiences that push the boundaries of traditional filmmaking.
Check out the trailer for "Baby Invasion" to get a glimpse of Harmony Korine's innovative approach to storytelling.