Paradies: Liebe

We enter here a paradisaical world with this woman, a middle-aged Austrian who's gone to Kenya on vacation. We enter as she does, strangers, fascinated. There is no transition to this new world, no waiting on airports, no planning for the journey, we are immediately swept as if by the urge to be there. Once there we see as she does, stylized images, arranged symmetries.

In the hotel resort there are trivial games, senile safety, control: the Africans are confections to be toyed with and enjoyed, ranges for the eye to roam. The question that looms is is she there for the encounter and surprise or merely looking for images to bring home to a dull life? You'll see this early in the metaphor with the monkey that takes her bait but refuses to be photographed, eluding her. More importantly: are we here on cinematic vacation or to come to an understanding?

Out in the streets there is a more palpable tension however; all about baring yourself to be seen and the quest for meaning. I like the subject, the lush Africa, the sexual frankness, the fact that sex and meaning are sublimated in a viewing space between people.

So I believe this could have been tremendously powerful stuff in the right hands. Alas the filmmaker is Austrian and this means that we see in the same stark light they bring to everything they do: from logic to politics to music. What does this mean, a stark light ?

It means every encounter has to be sooner rather than later exposed as meaningless, because the ultimate point here is some void at heart, the same that originally creates the journey there, which is also the filmmaker's. It means that he can't let go, and not allowing himself to yet know, coast on the tension of an encounter that may be false, that most probably is false, yet like movies and love work in life, that we can throw ourselves in it as if it is real and in doing so imbue it with truth, weave it from air. A Mood for Love with a question behind each glance.

I'm dreaming of the film Cassavetes would do: all about building to this more or less certain horizon of betrayal with momentary truths, small moments like passing a joint in the dark, riding this tension, hiding the logical knowledge. So I lament this because his failure is the same as his heroine's failure to find fulfillment. He resorts to more obvious stuff, merely chronicling the lack: disillusionment, loneliness and how that gives rise to dehumanizing spectacle as in the scene where the woman is offered in her hotel room a witless African to tease and fondle. Ordinary.

You can even see this reluctance in his camera when now and then he lets it wander: we don't deeply feel the textures, we are never truly enmeshed in the world.

Again this is as much cinematic translation of the woman's pov as it is inescapable worldview for the filmmaker, the same boxed worldview that Herzog runs from by journeying to the edges to throw himself on the manifold strangeness of things, letting his eye roam, staging boats tugged over hills so it can become real.

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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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.

After watching the first part of Ulrich Seidl's PARADISE trilogy you just have to answer to one question to know whether this Austrian director is doing worth watching material or not – "would I like to watch the second part?" And well, I would. There's really nothing quite like this film, for better or worse; although some of themes it touches aren't something we couldn't find elsewhere. It's about a woman, or better said women in their fifties or something who aren't happy – they have never been satisfied with the way they look and with their whole love life.

The first unusual thing is the setting: the African country Kenya. To call this some sort of definitive look at the culture of Kenya would be simplify things very much. It's really just a look at the Kenya that's close to the tourists. Nevertheless is a very rich film for that matter, with a quick learning of part of the culture – it's funny that we get to learn some African phrases that most likely, well one in specific, will make you remember Disney's THE LION KING!

The reason we don't see much of Kenya is that our main character Teresa (Margarethe Tiesel) is the representation of a tourist who's not traveling just to know a different part of the world but to find a new part of herself (and to do that she doesn't need to go very far from her hotel). PARADISE: LOVE is one of those films that constantly make you feel sorry for the respective protagonist. Ulrich definitely succeeded in creating a piece where things aren't totally messed up only superficially. Teresa is leaving her country Austria for the paradise of the title. The paradise refers to both the place and the things she believes is up to: a complete sexual freedom in Africa that ultimately could end in an experimentation of love – love is, unlike in Europe, eternal in Africa, says one of the main Kenyan characters

As you can tell, things aren't going to be as good as planned for Teresa. You may be thinking this is therefore a very sad film with the likes of a Todd Solondz film. After all, we have an upper middle class European woman with overweight continually suffering as sadness and dissatisfaction. Like I said, superficially things aren't quite depressing. PARADISE: LOVE is a women-having-crazy-vacation-fun film too – I'm writing this as a guy in his early twenties but if there's an audience that will "get" the film is definitely women in their forties or something close. What we have here is a very feminine point of view.

Therefore its sexual content is unusual as well – I'm pretty sure this film is one of the most, if not the most explicit one of the year, yet we don't have any intercourse scene. It's a take on male prostitution too – this is why, I think, the explicit material is only there to capture those women's lust and, essentially, idea of a real paradise. In other words: there's a lot of male nudity… you've been warned! The film is a deep, and very different sort-of "chick flick"; a sad look at a real issue that sometimes is funny.

*Watched it on 02 December, 2012