Jon Peters Reviews: “Paranoid Park”

It still amazes me that it was Gus Van Sant who directed the remake of “Psycho”. His films prior and especially after has made Van Sant a completely interesting director, who like a painter that takes a blank canvas and paints a picture that we can meditate on and get lost in, takes film and crafts the exact same thing. The word art and especially artist can get thrown around a lot within the film community but you can not deny Van Sant’s craft as anything else. Now, most people have misunderstood his films, especially his “death” trilogy, which includes “Elephant” and “Last Days”, sometimes getting confused on his long, static takes and his meandering style towards the narrative. Art is a fine line to tread; an child can easily, without conscience, throw around watercolor and crayons and have a community deem it art, all the while, turning a blind eye to a slowly crafted piece, that is trying to say something, and, of course, visa versa.
That is art as glamorous and unglamorous as that world sounds. Currently at the multiplexes are films ranging from studio fodder out to make a buck and trash hoping to steal a buck. Its quiet boring out there right now, truth be told, and “Paranoid Park” is a refreshing break from that. It continues themes Van Sant has been exploring; subculture, young aimlessness, loneliness, and death.

Alex is caught up in the world at Paranoid Park, an underground and social area, featuring all that enjoy the skateboarding sport. His skills aren’t that impressive, so he has taken a liking to just watching. At his high school, the police are interviewing all the kids that fit into the skateboarding community because a night watch guard at a nearby railroad was found dead and evidence points to a skateboard with blood on it. Troubled, Alex faces internal turmoil and doesn’t know how to let go of this, until a friend tells him he should write it down in a journal, then if he wishes, burn it or give it to someone, but at least it is out of his system.

The film is non-linear and features non-actors, much like “Elephant”, but as a whole is the best from Gus Van Sant recently. He uniquely balances the drab atmosphere of gray days and the melancholy mood with footage of the skateboarding community performing stunts, successfully and unsuccessfully, with a more stylized color palette, invoking a near impressionistic grandeur to it all. The sound design is impressive too; some sounds grow in frequency to a high pitch making that initial sound unrecognizable. It adds to the growing pressure of Alex’s inner turmoil. With all of that and Van Sant using non-descript characters just roaming life aimlessly like the average high school student does, creates an intimate and engulfing cinéma-vérité. It’s a slice of life, a quick document of that skateboarding subculture, that Van Sant has a clear understanding of, which makes his films equally arresting and real.

While “Elephant” and “Last Days” felt like he aped a style (from the great Alan Clarke), in “Paranoid Park” he has made it his own. On display is a more defined style, more assured. Those two prior films concluded in dreary and sad ways, developed from sadness and ended in deep despair, but while “Paranoid Park” begins that way, the flicker of hope is a refreshing note he plays within the film. Getting back to his shot-for-shot remake of “Psycho”, it would’ve been highly interesting take of the subject matter, if Van Sant used his cinéma-vérité style there, making it his own. Imagine how the results would’ve been? But that what makes him an artist; his choices he chooses to do and not do, with varying results. So maybe now, it doesn’t surprise me that he directed “Psycho” because at least he takes chances and in this new Hollywood system to approaching films on the marketing level first, his experiments will always be welcomed by me.