Paranoid Park (dir. Gus Van Sant, 2007) - EveryFilmIWatch Review

Paranoid Park is one of those whimsical, dreamlike and impulsive films that, in its very structure and fabric, aims to capture the inner workings of the teenage mind. Gus Van Sant, a director with a strong history of expertly capturing lower-middle class suburban angst, uses street casting and an exploitative, impressionistic lens to create a film experience that is so genuine feeling that it's almost uncomfortable.

It follows a vacant, confused 15-year-old skateboarder called Alex who, in amongst navigating high school life, his first sexual experiences and his fractious family situation, accidentally kills a security guard whilst riding a freight train illegally with a fellow skater. Van Sant is more than happy to let us live inside Alex's mind passively for the remainder of the film, as we witness not so much his guilt as his struggle to even get to grips with what he's guilty of. In an unusual but effective move, Van Sant hires legendary cinematographer and Wong Kar-wai collaborator Christopher Doyle. Doyle's style acts as an enabler for Van Sant's desire to simple live alongside Alex; his thoughtful and beautiful visuals inject each scene with a psychological subtext. He also cleverly mimics the style of Super 8 skateboard cameras, locking on to an object of interest and following it as it moves around the world.

The film is formless which is sometimes wonderful and clever, other times quite frustrating. Its journal voice-over framing device, put in place to give it the only semblance of form the film has, feels quite contrived. The performances are disarmingly naturalistic, to the point where the acting actually feels bad, but entirely believable. It's a very unusual effect. I admire Van Sant's willingness to trust those working around him in crafting the film, and something about his care and affection for the directionless, confused and distantly traumatised high schoolers he makes his subjects is touching. At 84 minutes, the film is brief, which is both the reason it feels a bit unsatisfying and a justification for its unwillingness to develop. A very interesting film well worth a watch if only for Doyle's visuals and its experimental nature alone.

EveryFilmIWatch is multi-channel film review project run by Sebastian Cox, ScriptUp co-founder. Further reviews can be found on Instagram.