Wow, Our Paradise! This movie blew me away from the first frame. One of the best gay movies I've ever seen, its strengths include its indisputable realism. The trolls, the johns, the older men are cast and played to perfection. You forget you're seeing actors who may or may not be gay. As a gay man you might be afraid you are seeing embarrassing bits and pieces of your own life exposed on that screen.
Prepare to be shocked. I've never seen such negative gay themes presented so convincingly. Sort of like a gay version of Natural Born Killers on steroids. Death, dismemberment and destruction as entertainment. Yet you can't take your eyes off the handsome but immoral and psychopathic main characters, the street-trash couple (Stephane Rideau as Vassili, and Dimitri Durdaine as Angelo) who wreak havoc on anyone in their destructive path. Their love is so real, so palpable, that you yearn to see them survive the bloody nightmare, le merde, that is their lives.
I only wish I spoke French, the language of this movie. There are English-language subtitles, but however good the captions are, there is just no way to capture every nuance spoken in such a sophisticated language as French. It's the language that gave us such elegant terms as soixante-neuf, menage-a-trois, frottage, mon choi, voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir?, and so many more.
Our Paradise is magnificently filmed on location in Paris and elsewhere across France. You feel as if you were standing in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. I normally don't watch films in a foreign language, but the title fooled me into thinking it was in English (original title: Notre Paradis). One glimpse of the mesmerizing story and I was hooked regardless of language. Available on Netflix.
