Paranoid Park

I was fortunate enough to attend a cast and crew screening of Gus Van Sant's latest film, Paranoid Park. Having missed Last Days, Gerry, and seeing only bits and pieces of Elephant, I didn't really know what to expect as he sheepishly greeted the crowd, said his thank you's, and let the film roll. With all the criticism, both for and against these recent films, I prepared myself for meaningless long shots of people walking, eating, and various other moments that would quickly find their way to most editor's cutting room floors. Would I be held hostage by a director too much in love with his own shots, or witness the work of a director who could, at this point in his career, easily coast -- yet continues to redefine himself? Thankfully, it was the latter.

Paranoid Park is easily one of my favorite films of the year, second only to First Snow. Both share the same kind of slow, dreamy reverie I think mainstream audiences are put off by. Both are threaded by haunting scores that are inseparable from the film as a whole. The film feels like music on its own.

Park's story is about the death of a security guard in Portland's industrial district, very close to an infamous skate park named Paranoid Park. The film was shot entirely in Portland Oregon. Much like Van Sant's, Drug Store Cowboy, the director treats the various locales in Portland as a second character, showcasing the unique flavor of the city without coming across as a film commissioned by the Oregon tourist board.

The young lead in the film, Gabe Nevins, in what is perhaps his debut film role, has the uneasy task of carrying the film. He plays Alex, a shy skater type who has little interest in his parents, school, or his pretty girlfriend. His performance is commendable. In a role that could have come across as the typical Skater Boy we've all seen 100 times before, he comes off naturally, as a nervous boy who's uncomfortable in his own skin; A boy gripped by an internal struggle too personal to share with anyone. The film is ultimately about this struggle. His narration might strike many viewers as stoic and forced. I would have to disagree. I saw it as the voice of a boy nervously scribbling away at his journal — mistakes and all. The entire film has that raw type of quality.

While pleased with Nevins' performance, I can't say the same for two of the young female actresses in the film. Taylor Momsen, who plays Alex's girlfriend is awful. In contrast to Nevins' natural performance, Momsen comes off like a pretty teenager who's nervous about being watched. I've seen better acting at middle school dance recitals. In a long scene shared by the two, we hear nothing but music, this seemed less like an artistic decision and more like a creative way to tune out her distracting acting. Lauren McKinney, as Alex's friend, shows us an equally wooden performance.

The most impressive quality of Paranoid Park is the gorgeous cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Kathy Li. There is a rich, warm — almost vintage quality to the film. Mixing what looked like various stocks of Super 8, digital video, and 35 MM film, each location is bathed in its own outward charm. In a scene where Alex sits on the beach, the aperture flicks forward and backwards, letting light jerk around the lens. It fits the mood of the scene perfectly, like orchestral scratches on an old LP.

Overall, Paranoid Park is like a gorgeous and melancholy folk song. With my head still swirling from summer block busters like Transformers and Harry Potter, it was refreshing to watch a film with breathing room. Whether the many dreamlike shots are the result of a director (who edits his own film) unwilling to cut away from his favorite shots, or of an orchestrated effort to thread the film like a song and let the narrative drift in and out, I am in love with his effort and look forward to dreaming with him more.

Yours in Service, Robert Plastorm

This reminded me very much of ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU. Languid story about youth culture with a tragic turn of events, with distinctive use of music and camera technique. It's a tough film to classify, not quite a character study, not much of a thriller, more of a mood piece. I was a little perplexed at what Van Sant was aiming for (and particularly confused by the repeated snippets of score from JULIET OF THE SPIRITS) but it resonates and does a pretty good job of sucking you into its rhythms and offbeat structure. There are a few character moments that don't quite ring true, but this may be more a function of the non-professional cast than any fault of the screenplay. Shot beautifully by Chris Doyle on location here in Van Sant's hometown of Portland, it's always a kick to see familiar places (and faces... Ken Boddie!). It's not a DRUGSTORE COWBOY or a GERRY, but I liked it more than a lot of other Van Sants I've tried.

After turning his back on the mainstream 6 years ago with his striking yet spurned two-man tale, Gerry, acclaimed writer/director Gus Van Sant delivers once more in refined style with his own eccentric yet poignant spin on the teen' movie genre.

Adapted from Blake Nelson's best selling novel and shot masterfully in Van Sant's hometown of Portland, Paranoid Park hinges on an act of acute violence. Alex (Gabe Nevins) is a confused schoolboy skater whose life hits the bricks following his role in the death of a local security guard. The film itself, then, is largely told from Alex's perspective as he goes back and forth in his mind and notebook in an attempt to vindicate his tainted conscious and make sense of why and how things happened the way they did.

With the chronology of the omniscient narrative skewed and certain scenes misleading, Paranoid Park establishes a near perfect balance between form and content. The naivety and confusion stirring behind Nevins' infantile eyes are both complimented and mirrored by the structure of the plot. In his feature debut, Nevins gives a modest performance of troubled teen' in whom thoughts of; family, divorce, sex, skating, school and murder suffer a succession of high-speed collisions. At the age of just 15, Nevins' not only performs with a quality beyond his tender years and experience, but provides a leading performance that is as convincing as it is impressive.

As for Van Sant, his tight film-making skills are exhibited throughout in what has to be considered as an experimental picture wherein an uncanny blend of hand-held, slow-mo' scenic inter-cuts, out-of-sync shots and mellow off-screen alternative music carve a moody yet nonchalant atmosphere that at times suggests that this is an independent crime-mystery drama, at others: a tale of boy becomes man. Whatever it is, it brings to mind the likes of Memento and Brick. Hence, it is simply brilliant. Mystifying, moving and quite majestic. Paranoid Park is one of this year's most haunting and interesting features that ranks amidst Van Sant's finest work to date. Good Will Hunting? Not quite. But for such a question to prompt a pause for thought says a lot. See this.

"Paranoid Park" is about what is going on in the head of a teenage boy after he has experienced a shattering trauma. He is dislocated and remote and 'not all there', or is he just in shock? It really is up to the audience to decide for themselves, because in an experimental movie like this one, no easy answers are forthcoming.

In general I quite like Gus Van Sant's films, but be aware that you need to judge each of his films on their own merits. This is hardly the Gus Van Sant of Hollywoodian mild indie fare like "To Die For", "Psycho", "Good Will Hunting" or "Finding Forrester". Stylistically "Paranoid Park" is a close cousin to his later "Elephant". Low key, quiet, internalised, sometimes naturalistic, but often dreamy, and with a chronologically fractured time line. None of the actors seemed to be acting at all. Brilliant casting or brilliant acting? I am unsure.

Not for everybody.

Gus Van Sant continues his trend of making dreamy, artsy mood-pieces with Paranoid Park, a film about a skateboarding teen who accidentally causes the death of a security guard. In some ways, it almost feels like a continuation of Elephant, where kids are shot walking through school hallways in slow motion (here photographed by the legendary Christopher Doyle), and their actions and reactions are observed quietly. No, no literal shooting in those hallways this time, thank God, just the thick sense of guilt weighing down on young Alex (Gabe Nevins). From what I had read about this film, I had gathered that it was about a disaffected teenager who doesn't really care about the death he caused (and, reading some words written over Paranoid Park, it seems that that is a common interpretation, which I think is entirely incorrect). Van Sant thankfully isn't going the "don't teenagers suck?" route that many filmmakers would probably go. Alex is depicted as a boy wounded, and who understands what he has wrought. Van Sant perfectly captures that high school feeling of being lost in your own life, visualized in gorgeous footage of skateboarders dreamily gliding up ramps and walls. The chronology is disassembled, but not quite in the same, Béla Tarr-inspired way as it was in the director's previous two films. Disassembled chronology is becoming quite a cliché nowadays, but a director like Van Sant knows how to use it, how it adds to the mood and meaning of the picture.