Paranoid Park

Gus Van Sant
2007

With the release of Paranoid Park Gus Van Sant sadly caps a cinematic hat trick that started with 2002's Gerry and ended with 2005's Last Days. A hallmark of this trilogy (that also included the superb Columbine meditation, Elephant) was the participation of Director of Photography Harris Savides, whose lensing skills are noticeably absent from this production. In breaking this fruitful partnership, and opting for Christopher Doyle to shoot instead (also a prior collaborator), Van Sant's film suffers from an aesthetic confusion unbecomingly amateurish in light of his prior achievements.

The picture borrows its story from the YA book of the same title, a teenage Crime and Punishment in which skater Alex is wracked by guilt over his part in the accidental murder of a railway security guard. The simple plotting is complemented by a fractured chronology that provides a measured and candid view into Alex's inner life. His mundane interactions with parents, adults, and peers comprise the bulk of the picture, and are far more deft and illuminating than the hokey murder mystery anyway. Van Sant's been good with youth actors in the past, but unfortunately only Gabe Nevins' lead performance comes off as something more meaningful than the cloying quality a failed non-actor performance always seems to possess, though to be fair, Lauren McKinney's bleach-streaked alternateen has charm to spare.

The Oregon grey and copious amounts of concrete on display add to the muted and washed out aesthetic, creating a cliched look which screams "disaffected youth." This drab-by-default palette is puzzling considering the look is directly at odds with the anti-fashion, anti-buzzword portrait Van Sant attempts to bring out of his subjects. Additionally, the practice of filming skate sessions in super-8 (or some identical looking process) and co-opting skateboard video devices is an appallingly trite riff on the subculture. Its a cheesy cop-out that places the filmmaker's age squarely and unnecessarily on his sleeve.

What seems most frustrating is that this is ground Van Sant has previously trod, and done so with sincerity and panache. It feels as if something's missing this time around, an amorphous discord between direction and performance, photography and tone. I can't help but imagine what may have been were Savides behind the camera. For an accomplished and increasingly admirable artist, this feels like two steps back.

Review by Brett A. Scieszka