Paradies: Liebe

I saw this film at the Ghent filmfestival 2012. We were told that it was the first of three related films, the two successors to be named 'Paradise: Faith' (already released), and 'Paradise: Hope' (to be released in 2013). Quote from festival announcement: "On Kenya's beaches they are known as 'sugar mamas': European women who seek out African boys selling love to earn a living. Teresa, a 50-year-old Austrian woman, travels to this vacation paradise. 'Paradise: Love' tells of older women and young men, of Europe and Africa, and of the exploited, who end up exploiting others."

The festival screening took place in a fully booked venue (225 seats). More than half (very unusual) of the people stayed for the final Q&A with the principal actor (Margarete Tiesel), and there were (also unusual) many relevant questions. She admitted upfront that she had not read the script prior to shooting (though she did after wards). She is a professional actor, but the African boys are all amateurs.

What struck me the most when watching this film, is that the "boys" never ask money for their "services" in a direct way. Rather they always seem to have a family member in financial difficulties, badly in need of financial support, medical bills being the most common story. We see that happen on Terese's first trip outside the hotel, where her "boy" takes her to his sister (not really, as we see later on), and subsequently a school teacher. Each one has a sad story and needs money. And when she does not cough up enough money, the boy refuses to be touched anymore. On her second trip Teresa seems very aware of all this, recognizing it as standard operating procedure. She starts playing along without feeling awkward about it, and gradually appears to have found her way in this "game".

In the final Q&A the subject "exploitation" came about several times, apparently without easy answers. It is not exploitation per se, when both sides look happy with the arrangement. She talked with several other women there with ample experience in the matter. Some bought for instance a motor bike for her African "lover", or even a house, and travel a few times per year to the area. The "boys" speak one of the usual European languages (English, German, etc); which one is dependent on the area. Yet, while the story progresses, we nevertheless observe a certain language barrier, several times causing misunderstandings about mutual intentions.

All in all, this is a remarkable feature film bordering on a documentary about sex tourism. We have heard about sex tourism in Thailand, particularly for men. This time it is about women with money to spend. The film clearly demonstrates to us how it works. What the films shows is very explicit, even to the extent that we see Teresa explaining to the "boy" how she prefers to be touched, and we closely observe him learning which way works best for her. This scene marks the duality of their respective roles, not parasitic but rather symbiotic. Showing all this in a natural way, without too much embarrassment for us viewers, is an achievement in itself. I scored a 5 (out of 5) for the audience award when leaving the theater.

I remember watching this in my twenties and hoping to never end up as one of these ladies, now in my thirties i'd realised i might actually end up like one of them, I just hope i can actually afford it by then.

Finally some meaningful film on the repertoire! I loved it although I found it a little bit slow, but I still gave it 7 out of 10. Life in reality is slow, so it is natural.

So is sex. Natural! That is showing in this film. Everyone needs sex and love! So do fat Austrian women. In Austria they probably would not get any, so they have to travel to Kenya. Kenyan are so poor that it is a way to make some money. It is business! Sex tourism! There is so much of it today all over the world. Sad and funny and heartwarming at the same time.

If you want a little bit break from Hollywood, please watch this.

When reading internet reviews of Paradise: Love (Paradies: Liebe) — the first in a trilogy of films by Ulrich Seidl, never have I been greeted with such a narrow variety of perspectives. From adjectives limited to a spectrum anywhere between grotesque, obese and tubby, comparisons in style between Seidl and fellow Austrian Michael Haneke, to referencing the exact same quote by Werner Herzog (used in describing Seidl's 2011 documentary Animal Love), I could not help but wonder… what the heck is going on? And when did pundits unite in thinking that female sex tourism in cinema would die eight years ago, after Laurent Cantet's Heading South (Vers le sud); a French film based on three middle-aged women and their search of sex and intimacy with Haitian men?

Herzog's candid remark, conflated into a handy, overused critique isn't worth repeating here.

Loneliness, exploitation, the prison room of cultural and self- repression are themes in this Austrian drama. Cruelly soaked in the warm currents of colonial past; Ulrich Seidl meticulously, sincerely, unapologetically paints the portrait of Teresa (Margarete Tiesel) — a 50 year old woman living in Vienna, upper middle-class, divorced mother of a teenager. Most of the film depicts events that gradually unfold during her lone vacation on the shores of Kenya.

Sex tourism is probably only part of the canvas, though. For in the process, it scratches and destroys the heteronormative lenses with which we understand taboos. Written by Seidl and Veronika Franz; Paradise: Love is a film so explicitly honest to the point of being awkward; that most viewers, embarrassed for Teresa, will look away during moments of vulnerability and self-revelation. The camera of cinematographers Edward Lachman and Wolfgang Thaler looks on unflinchingly during a scabrous encounter with her first companion: does he find her attractive? Isn't she too old for him? Why would he want to make love to her — a beached whale with sagging upper glands, belly full of fat, soggy exterior flawed with celluloid? But most pressingly, having considered the social realist tradition of framing with minimum distortion, why would anyone wince and look away when confronted with mirrors reflecting the consequence of corporeality?

This seventeenth feature by the controversial auteur has been slammed, shamed and shunned for being brazen in its visual audacity. Suggestions that Seidl manipulates viewers with exploitative logic are also suspect in affecting the film's overall reception. Yet, it would be prudent to withhold from believing such. In Paradise: Love — seekers, movers, malcontent inhabitants are drenched in the rich, luxurious texture of a sunlit paradise. The narrative path however; doesn't build up to sex, love or Maslowian truth as its payoff; lesser films would.

I have no doubt this film is a difficult watch because Ulrich Seidl forces Teresa (and us) to acknowledge the naive illusions of paradisaical beauty. But in rhythmic throes that oscillate between anguish, ecstasy and depravity — the African rendition of La Paloma; perhaps a bit saddened by its contrast with the ugly, ordinary trading off between flesh and soul — Seidl derides the remarkable irony of what it means to be human. The dewy-eyed bourgeois privilege suffers. I suppose this is the real reason why Paradise: Love can seem so offensive and unglamorous.

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An Austrian woman on holiday in Kenya, is convinced by a fellow country woman to seduce a local boys for the fun of it as they are tasty as an exotic fruit. The hesitant woman eventually gives in and she has a taste of young love. Unaware or perhaps out of naivety that for the local boys, older European women are a good way to supplement their income she spends a bit of time under the illusion that she is loved by an attractive young man. When reality hits, it hurts and this frustrated woman turns her quest from looking for a bit of fun to an odyssey of self-confirmation.

Simple, effective and nicely made this is a beautifully visual thesis on holiday romance.