Daft, self-indulgent tosh (Paranoid Park (DVD))

Member Name: shaneo632

Product:	Paranoid Park (DVD)
Date:	04/09/09 (3 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Decent kid performances

Disadvantages: Overly flagrant style

note: also appears on my film review website, ShaunMunro.co.uk, thanks!

It's old school, it's retrograde, it's Paranoid Park - the latest outing from Gus Van Sant. Accompanied by an array of grainy handheld shots of various young persons skateboarding, we learn that Paranoid Park is essentially the skateboarding Mecca, and that "nobody was ever ready for it", least of all troubled teenager Alex (Gabe Nevins).

I am always sure to be highly sceptical of films that seem to be trying far too hard to retain a "hip" quality, and from the moment we were introduced to a teacher who sounded very much like the skateboarders he was attempting to educate, my confidence began to wane.

As Alex is called into the principal's office to speak to a police officer, it becomes evident very quickly that something isn't right - Alex has clearly done something wrong, but what? A cool, trendy film is suddenly given a macabre jolt - Paranoid Park is, in fact, a film polarised by the suspicious death of a security guard, with our hoodie-clad protagonist at the cusp of the finger-pointing.

Paranoid Park is an oddly structured film indeed - Van Sant frequently cuts to poetically shot, yet nevertheless disorientating interludes, ranging from slow-motion sweeps of faceless individuals skateboarding, to Alex simply ordering some fast food, for seemingly no reason at all. You could argue that such fancies seek to bridge the narrative, and whilst they do, it's in the most banal, sigh-inducing manner possible. Running in at a slim 85 minutes, this is a minimalist film by all means, yet there is still the insistence to grind its gears to a halt at all the wrong moments, only for Van Sant to say "Look what I can do with slow-motion".

Eventually, some information is nonchalantly tossed our way, but I wondered very early on - was this going to link by the end of the film? Are these reverie-esque moments going to provide a deeper meaning in an hour's time? Moreover, is sitting through more uses of the word "like" than I can physically stomach going to be worth it? Sadly, the answer to most of these questions is a resounding "no".

After half an hour of what I would loosely call "meditative" scenes, with plenty of prancing around on screen by all involved, the murder mystery aspect of the film's narrative finally rears its underexposed head. This film is at its best when the cheerfully-slick detective is sniffing around the skater groups, free of slow-motion shots and ambient sound effects, yet sadly, these moments are lacking in abundance.

Regrettably, most scenes of interest are framed by these unrestrained, flagrant moments of self-indulgence from Van Sant, never allowing us to fully engage with the film's characters and their rather unfortunate sets of circumstances. At first, I was able to forgive such extravagance, but by the half-way point, this technique was well and truly redundant.

Bravely, however, Van Sant reveals the devilishly simple circumstances of the security guard's death fairly early on in the picture. A lesser film would have saved this for a "shocking" turn at the end, yet the decision to throw it in at little over half way knocked me for six, and caused me to wonder where exactly it was going to go from here. Now that the facts are known, will it focus less on enigma, and more on character?

Again, the answer is no. Any identification we attempt to confer between ourselves and the protagonist in particular is drowned by these ridiculous breaks in the narrative, which simply act as overlong window-dressing to an already flailing production. Paranoid Park is a portrait without context - we witness Alex taking his girlfriend's virginity, yet we never learn its importance - why show this to us other than to pad out an already diluted script? There is only one slight hint at the need for this scene, and whilst one could argue that it's all about Alex's underlying machinations (in his apathy and disinterestedness towards this pretty girl), I will scoff, as I think it's giving the film far too much credit.

The final moments of Paranoid Park are a sort of dark, restrained catharsis. Are they satisfying? Not entirely, although given the options the characters had left, and how it could have gone, it wasn't entirely the wrong way to end things.

Paranoid Park feels like an audacious effort on the part of an acclaimed director, and I find myself asking why. When you strip this film down to its bare bones, remove the slow-motion and actually look for some steak among all that sizzle, you're going to likely be grossly disappointed. Paranoid Park is simply the remains of the day, with about an hour's worth of scenes which are moderate in quality, yet where its consistency lies is in squandering the halfway-intriguing murder investigation. This film could have redeemed itself had it dealt with Alex more as a character and less as a fairly dislikeable stereotype, yet it seems comfortable in simply arousing our senses with more than its fair share of impressive cinematography.

As I recently commented of Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, one must always respect the pursuits of artisans, yet when a picture is shamelessly, flagrantly empty, so devoid of substance, no amount of wondrous cinematography can compensate. Paranoid Park will certainly find its audience with those who don't require a well-crafted narrative to enjoy a film, but for anyone else, this is a disappointing, near-pointless, and dare I say, pretentious film. Perhaps what this film does best is illustrate to us what happens when you take the pen out of an auteur's hand, and replace it with a paint brush - the results can be spectacular, but as with this film, they can also leave a foul taste. Paranoid Park is no better than a clichéd action film, or a thriller with a silly, unnecessary twist, and further still, is infinitely more irritating.

Summary: Style over substance