Paranoid Park

Paranoid Park (2008) - 3/10

First Viewing: 3/14/08

Directed by Gus Van Sant

Cinematography by Christopher Doyle
Starring Gabe Nevins as Alex

Gus Van Sant’s latest film is a disappointment and all the more frustrating because of its wasted potential. We follow a young skater (Gabe Nevins) who is disturbed after committing a terrible deed near Paranoid Skate Park. Instead of presenting the events in a narrative fashion, Van Sant decides to present his story in a fragmented manner. While I have no qualms with such experimentation, I do have issues with Van Sant's execution. The film could have been a tightly-constructed, fourty-five minute character-study, but Van Sant prolongs the film by simply repeating events and using slow motion shots of skaters and our protagonist to an annoying and even voyeuristic extent. This does not add any depth to the skater’s actions and instead makes the film feel bloated.

Perhaps the film’s biggest issue is that it struggles to present two themes, both of which have the potential to be fascinating, but are never properly fleshed out. One theme attempts to explore the skater’s guilt and anguish over his actions and the other to depict the selfish, every-man-for-himself mentality of individuals. The first doesn’t work because of Nevins’ terrible voice-over delivery and the afore-mentioned repetitive nature of the film. The second theme also doesn’t work because of some very awkward dialogue (the obnoxious Napoleon Dynamite monologue) and distractingly bad acting (the protagonist’s friend who always wants to "get laid").

This isn’t to say that all aspects of the film are terrible. Indeed, Christopher Doyle’s cinematography is beautiful and mesmerizing, the sound design is well thought out, and the soundtrack is often excellent. But none of these wonderful things are allowed to shine because of the rest of the film’s weaknesses. In the end, the film's biggest failing is that despite much of the film being comprised of beautiful and almost lustful close-ups of Nevins' cherubic face, we never really get to know who his character is.

Additional Thoughts:
I later learned that this film is being released on blu-ray in April. I'm tempted to give Paranoid Park another watch at that point. First of all, Christopher Doyle's cinematography would look amazing. Second, the film may make more sense if I view it as a very subjective effort - that is, Van Sant shows how an emotionally underdeveloped middle-class teen is trying to make sense of his life through the use of elliptical storytelling.

Unfortunately, I feel that most of my afore-mentioned criticisms will stand unchanged. For instance, there's a scene near the beginning that plays a cool electronica soundtrack over mesmerizing tracking shots (shot in 8 mm film) of anonymous skateboarders at Paranoid Park. Van Sant then inserts random French dialogue into the soundtrack. I find it hard to believe that Portland teenagers would be playing French dialogue through their heads; the scene suddenly shifts from one of mesmerizing beauty to one of blatant pretentiousness.