Paranoid Park
©2007 MK2
The youth in Paranoid Park are the progeny of broken marriages, and are running amok, it seems, in a society whose inhabitants have become dislocated.
The main character is Alex, a schoolboy who spends a great deal of his spare time skating at a dubious venue near his neighbourhood in Portland: Paranoid Park. As well as youths such as himself there is an assortment of troubled misfits abandoned homeless kids, junkies and so on. They are unified not by emotional bonds, but by their participation in nihilistic activities such as drug-taking, and train-hopping.
Alex’s parents are separated, and things aren’t going well between them. His brother has some sort of eating disorder and Alex’s relationship with his girlfriend Jennifer is also problematic.
Alex finds himself involved in a gory incident that reflects the fractured society in which he lives. Not having anyone to confide in, he begins to journal his experiences. Despite appearances, Alex has a conscience. Yet he says nothing. Why? By having him confide in his journal, Van Sant indicates that Alex wants to relieve himself of the burden, but that the “responsible adults” in his life show little real interest in him.
The performances in this film vary broadly. Some of the acting is not quite up to scratch; other performances are very good.
Visually, this film is quite different from Van Sant’s previous three films. He employs some nifty camera work to enhance the themes in this film. We don’t see much of the adults in Alex’s life, and, indeed, we only see his mother framed in long shots. This is starkly contrasted with images of the youths in Alex’s world skating in slow motion, and of close-up shots of Alex himself. Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s striking and hypnotic images really complete this film.
The repetitive slow motion, showing youths skating, or our protagonist walking down school corridors may indicate a filmmaker stretching the running time, and irritate some. At first, it irked this viewer – particularly the images of Alex wandering down the school’s passageways, listening to his iPod. However, Van Sant is, presumably, alluding here to the way in which today’s youth are ensconsed in their own little worlds: listening to their own music playlists, associating with a particular sub-culture (in this case, skaters), and even neglected, in some ways, by the adults in their lives, who are struggling with their own problems: financial difficulties, and, in this case, a broken marriage. More than ever, youth are retreating into their own headspace.
They may have more material goods than ever before, and they may have a greater degree of freedom in their activities, but one can’t help but wonder if they would trade both of those for a secure, stable home, and adults who take an active interest in them.
Van Sant urges us to see the young people depicted in this film, not as delinquents, but as the product of a society that has albeit inadvertently, abandoned them, in this elegiac tale of loss of innocence.