Review of Paranoid Park (2007) by Richard S — 08 Dec 2008

Only time will tell how much it will stay with me, but on first viewing this is the strongest connection I've felt to work from this phase of Van Sant's career. Sound design was the initial draw. Scenes such as the shower meltdown are up there with Lodge Kerrigan's best. I've made it no secret that Juliet of the Spirits is a favorite of mine (and along with the other Masina efforts, the only Fellini I currently care for). Tying Rota's music to scenes of intentional banality and dreamy teeny melodrama worked. Both films draw on the subjective view of the director's (arguable) love interests. If not that, both men are fascinated with them on some level. The reprisal of a couple of Smith's songs reminded me of when I wished Van Sant had chosen him over Cobain for Last Days.

Speaking of subjectivity, is this the first time that Van Sant has given the characters in this series of films their own internal voice? I remember Pitt being intentionally impenetrable and Elephant being clinically observed. Given the perspective, I didn't find the blurring of and disconnection from the non-skateboarders strained. That and the stuttered writing fit. That the whole thing is about a wholly personal, lost narrative also fascinated me.

There's some issue with the lecherous gaze, but at times it seemed less Van Sant than an accurate expression of how a boy who is an admitted skateboarding novice may have felt about the kids who were living his dreams- as mundane as they may be. There's also a sense that Van Sant understands the delayed disappointment most have had when looking back at high school yearbooks. Many of his slo-mo/idealization shots make blemishes and other imperfections (including the maligned anorexic aspect of the kids) clear as day. The boy is likely not seeing these things now, but would wonder what he was thinking if he happened upon similar images in decades removed.

Paranoid is clearly indebted to L'Avventura's fading narrative. For many, the railyard mystery could be a selling point, but it is little more than red herring. The late Bressonian detached youths that attracted Richard Hell and other punks to his work also come to mind. If it were not already an accepted fact, he establishes himself as one of the only American directors approaching formal innovation on the same scale as Tsai Ming Liang, Claire Denis and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

It is with an understated, and oft overlooked sense of humor, that Van Sant renders half a decade's smug "indie" comedies obsolete. In what could be viewed as a throwaway single-shot aside, he obliterates Napoleon Dynamite by recasting Hess as a less-than-amateur child who rattles off his lines to an unwaveringly bored captive audience. To say that this scene's dismissal of one of the decade's worst films provided great personal satisfaction would be an understatement.

Given Van Sant's propensity for gay subtext (and otherwise), Paranoid is refreshingly ambiguous. While some could read the lead boy's dismissal of his superficially attractive girlfriend in favor of the companionship of the boys at the skate park, and the less attractive, but infinitely more insightful, almost-recipient of his secrets, as a the initial murmurings of a coming-out, it seems more likely that his flip attitude toward the loss of his virginity, and decision to forego further easy dalliances, is more a reaction against forming the sort of ties that his parents are still struggling to sever after well over a decade. In a broader context, it is a refreshing move away from Apatow's Superbad school of thought.

I have yet to see Milk, but hope that it maintains some of the formal interest of Van Sant's last four features. As indicated by What We Do is Secret, the wholly amateur Germs biopic, such subject matter can easily go awry. If ever there was project suited for the director it would have been that sexually conflicted cult of personality.