PARANOID PARK (2007)

 
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:39 pm    Post subject: PARANOID PARK (2007) Reply with quote

This is a story about skateboarding and about a segment of US teenage culture, and seen in that light it does a good job. It probably captures the experience of skateboarding as well as anything can for viewers who haven’t tried the pastime, and it definitely captures the speech style of contemporary teenagers–a style that seems heavily dependent on intonation and body language for conveying meaning. This is probably hard to get right in a movie, but this movie does so well at it that it often seems like a documentary.

But it is also telling a serious story about an impressionable and vulnerable young man who accidentally kills a security guard.

Since the story isn’t based on a real incident, so far as I know, I wonder why it had to be quite so grisly. An investigator passes a photo around among a group of teenage skateboarders, who laugh when they see it. We soon learn that the photo shows the dead man, who has been cut in half by a train.

They might have been laughing because their first impression was that it was too ghastly to be real–it had to be a joke. If that is the reason they are laughing, this isn’t made clear. Their laughter isn’t dealt with in the movie, and it isn’t the point at all. But it’s troubling.

Laughter isn’t an acceptable response to a photo of death and gore. Horror is.

Also, the kids shown in this movie may be representing themselves as outcasts when they are not. That, too, isn't entirely clear.

Gabe Nevins as Alex seems well cast, however, and the movie has some excellent moments.
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