Paranoid Park

Gus Van Sant's ongoing exploration of the lot of disaffected teens continues with this slow, dreamlike study of a typical teenager (newcomer Gabe Nevins) whose life is thrown into emotional turmoil when he accidentally kills a security guard.

This film has a number of strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps its biggest strength is the commendable ordinariness of its teens; they could be your kids, your brother or sister, your friends, you; their every thought and action isn't predetermined by an overpowering desire to get laid, they're not prone to playing pranks on one another or their teachers, and they're not getting drunk or taking drugs at every opportunity. They have pointless conversations that go nowhere, the aspects of the world they consider unimportant are instinctively exiled to the edges of their consciousness and they are not yet infected with the overbearing urge to get on in life. Alex, the film's focal point, wanders aimlessly through his life, the impact of his accidental killing of a security guard barely monitoring on his blank features.

The film also wanders, also apparently aimlessly for much of its brief running time. Van Sant employs a non-linear chronology to tell his tale, a device that has very quickly become over-used and that, in most cases, adds little or nothing to the impact of the fractured story it describes. Here, scenes that don't make a lot of sense the first time we see them are replayed later on once the chronological gaps have been filled. It's like pieces of a jigsaw falling into place – but it also smells suspiciously of a director with not much material on his hands using every trick he can think of to elongate material that doesn't really add up to more than 45 minutes screen time. In addition to the same scenes playing twice, Van Sant also treats us to long (and frequent) slow motion sequences of nothing in particular: school-kids walking through their school's corridors, Alex's friend driving his car, kids at the eponymous skateboard park showing their stuff in grainy 8mm. It all adds a dreamy, detached feel to things that pulls you in with its mesmerising repetition in the same way that the fluent, alert sections of the mind might yield to some particularly strong grass, only without dulling the senses.

The isolation of all youth – from whatever generation – is succinctly captured in Alex's plight, the extremity of his situation perversely succeeding in pinpointing teen angst rather than generalising it. I can't really decide whether Nevins is terrific or just terrifically bad. His face is an impenetrable mask, almost permanently blank, and his lines are delivered in a monotone that captures the inflections (or lack of) of youth. All this might have been what he was told to do, or might just be the best he can muster in terms of acting ability. Either way, his character provokes responses that range from sympathy to exasperation in the viewer, which ultimately leave you wishing you could step inside the story to bang a few heads together and get things moving.

Fans of Van Sant will probably love this film, but very few neutral viewers will be converted to his style of movie-making.

I've been a fan of Van Sant's films for a while now. I guess I could boil this interest down to the college influence. Art, in any form (but especially cinema), seems to resonate with my generation (1980's on). This film is the third in what I see as a three part series (the first two being Elephant and Last Days). All three surprisingly depict the attitude of the contemporary youth in a way that no other films have been able to do. I say surprisingly because it strikes me as odd that Van Sant would be able to so accurately capture the thoughts, feelings and attitudes of such a misunderstood generation. So often, parents of these children say such things as, "we did that when we were your age," or, "I can relate to what you are going through," but what these parents often fail to recognize is that although the things we encounter may be similar the times as Bob Dylan would say, "are a changin'." To capture the particular mindset of the youth of today is a feat in itself, but to do so and provide entertainment as well deserves at least a brief look.

The film Paranoid Park itself seems to capture this way of thinking better than the previous two films. What starts as a simple rant about the modern youth becomes so much more. At first, you might find yourself thinking that the movie is somber,or perhaps unrealistic as the circumstances of the action are strange, but as you continue watching it the message that is trying to be conveyed becomes clear. This could have been you. This could have been me. It could have been you child, or the kid down the street. The common themes of teen flicks of drugs, sex, and rock and roll are pushed aside to highlight the internal strife of the protagonist. The "emo" music and distinctive fashion of this generational subculture seem all too real, and in the end you are left feeling as the main character does: silent and alone. Is this a movie about hope? I'm not sure. What I am sure about is that it deserves a chance. Paranoid Park could best be described as a much needed break from mainstream cinema, but more important, a film that might just make you think.

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

Paranoid Park (2007) ****

Another Van Sant gem. Discovering Bela Tarr has really redefined his career, and brought out a new artistic direction in him. I've really been enjoying his new directions, and have been a great admirer of Elephant in particular. Van Sant here has crafted a very interesting film, one that at the end had to make me think for a minute: wait? he's robbed us of the end of the story - only to snap back again seconds later to think: you crafty swine...

Yes, the security guard narrative essentially is a macguffen. Paranoid Park transcends its thematic plot to discover deeper and far more rewarding truths. The film is above all about communication, or the lack thereof, or learning how to of. The story follows Alex, a young skater who is involved in the accidental but brutal death of a security guard in a train yard nearby the infamous Paranoid Park. The narrative style jumps around in time, tracing a number of days in the life of our young skater. He has issues with his parents: they're divorcing; he feels they don't' care about him. He has issues with his girlfriend: she pushes him to have sex, and he does not because he wants to but because he can't communicate how he feels to her. And to push things over the top, he has the burden of being involved in a man's death, and a suspicious but jovial police officer questioning him. Sounds like pretty standard stuff, but its the execution that makes it work. Alex narrates the film as he writes out his story. We come to find in the last act that he's been persuaded by a kindly and politically interested girl, who recognizes when no one else does that he's harbouring some serious baggage. This she tells him is the key to his emancipation. Once he writes he had can simply burn it - its the telling of the story that counts, not the audience. Van Sant employs his newfound quiet and laboured pacing to highlight the anomic alienation of Alex from his slacker and otherwise inept friends (who laugh at the photos of the mutilated man's body), his girlfriend, and most of all his parents. He uses some excellent and totally unexpected music for a skater film, and structures this as the most refined film featuring skate boarding one could imagine. He also uses some clever camera and editing tricks, such as a number of sequences where the soundtrack plays at normal speed against a shot that is slowed down, creating a dreamy and hallucinatory effect. It was otherwise nice to see some old School Fellini film music thrown in their. Parents were a big theme in Elephant, and I think an even bigger theme here. Van Sant uses a simple but ingeniously clever camera trick to highlight the distance between Alex and his parents - he keeps their faces either offscreen of out of focus, save for one important moment. The affect created is such that when we finally see the face come into focus, the words said become all the more poignant and truly touching

"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.