I realized recently, after it happened for a fourth time, that I have tested many of my would-be situationships by showing them the movie Spree. It’s a quick and foolproof way to see if they are as internet-poisoned as I am, thus telling me if we will be able to hold any reasonably stimulating conversation. Spree is not perfect, but I’ve long considered it the quintessential screenlife film and fundamental viewing for anyone with a post-covid cynicism for the woke-isms of influencer culture. That’s all just to qualify that, as a bona fide Spree-head, it should hold greater weight when I say that Eugene Kotlyarenko’s latest film Vintage Violence is his best yet.

Vintage Violence is an immersive caper-action-romance-comedy-horror film about a transpacific selvedge denim scam. Cole Sprouse plays Carter, an urban exploring micro-influencer who, after a stint in jail, has returned to livestream his latest expedition. Under an abandoned house in nowhere-America, Carter uncovers a trunk of incredibly rare, untouched, vintage Levi’s. One of his viewers—Izumi, played by the astonishing Kiko Mizuhara—implores him to come to Japan where she can help resell them to the tune of a million dollars.

I thought Kotlyarenko perfected the art of mixed-media screenlife in Spree, but in Vintage Violence it has evolved into a pure form of expressionist filmmaking. It’s so incisive that it’s hard to imagine a more effective way to set up this story and these characters. Izumi and Carter have to build their relationship and trust online before they meet, which could pose a challenge narratively, but the split-screen simultaneity changes the emotional information of every interaction. When one of their actions +  the other’s reaction occupies the same frame, it collapses any distance between them. A throwaway close-up becomes inseparable from the person being watched, creating a feedback loop where intimacy and surveillance are happening at the same time.

Once the two are united in the fluorescent and pixieish technological utopia of Tokyo, the jeans scheme becomes a mad-cap bloodbath involving underbelly criminals, the US embassy, and a dripped-out Yakuza boss in a denim kimono. 

Story-wise, it’s definitely Kotlyarenko’s most coherent and even slightly boilerplate. It’s the stylistic choices, highly complimented by DP Sean Price Williams (The Sweet East, Good Time, The Moment), editors Tucker Bennett (In The Glow of Darkness, Crocodile Dose) and Sabrina Greco (The Code, Lockjaw), and composer Eli Keszler (www.RachelOrmont.com, The Scary of Sixty-First) that make Vintage Violence one-of-a-kind.

For all of the manic references to the trashier end of Japanese genre cinema—lurid colours, heightened violence, absurd criminal melodrama—a majority of what you see on screen here has maybe never been seen on screen before. A DePalma-esque chase sequence through a kawaii photobooth hall is probably the best example of this, where Carter tracks down Izumi by the audio breakup that happens when Airpods drift too far from their phone, causing the signal to deteriorate, essentially using Bluetooth as a trail of breadcrumbs. 

This is where Kotlyarenko has always been cutting edge. He has a freakishly current understanding of technology and doesn’t treat the digital world as a separate realm from real life. The devices, platforms and behavioural quirks that have colonized everyday existence become the connective tissue of how his characters understand the world and each other. 

Without wanting to delve too much into the hijinks that ensue, I do need to underscore how good the performances are in this movie. Sprouse is perfect as Carter (it helps that he has IRL experience as a post-Suite Life pre-Riverdale urban explorer), playing him with the dumb yet undeniable charisma of a young Harrison Ford. Mizuhara gives Izumi the cool opacity of a Japa-noir femme fatale that still can’t help but ooze vulnerability. She’s incredible.

The supporting cast is our main source of comic relief, and it’s virtually never ending whenever Vishwam Velandy or Nick Corirossi are on screen. The livestream comments deserve their own article, honestly. Kudos to Matt Chan and team, who fill the feed with the shockingly of-the-moment references to Charlie Kirk and Hedi boys, creating a crucial part of the movie’s texture.

For the sake of being a critic, I could mention a few of the issues in Vintage Violence, like jumping a little too quickly between plot mechanics, but I just don’t really care. The story underneath all of this has existed since the crime/action genre has. Kotlyarenko’s hyperkinetic methods of telling it are so plugged into the avant garde, why pick it apart?

I do, however, suspect that Vintage Violence is going to be polarizing or annoying to anyone who doesn’t find internet pathology fascinating or funny. Fair enough. A movie that is this committed to its own worldview should be capable of alienating people. It wouldn’t be special if everyone could see themselves in the comment section. Anyways, I’m looking forward to giving Spree a break as my personal situationship screening process, Vintage Violence will be the real test now.

Images Courtesy of TIFF and Spacemaker Productions