The latest Gus Van Sant movie is one of the best I have seen from him as I find it to be truly poetic with some breathtaking visuals and great non-linear storytelling that captivated me more than the story the movie tells. In my opinion this is a movie that you will highly enjoy more for Van Sant evolved experimental cinema style than anything else.The story is an adaptation of Blake Nelson (Nelson’s calls himself as “writer of Young Adult novels) written by Van Sant and follows a 16-year-old skateboarder Alex, who has a life changing incident outside Paranoid Park, Portland’s most infamous skateboarding park. When Alex decides to say nothing, he takes on a crushing burden of guilt with huge ramifications. As a way to tell others about the incident and following a friend’s advice, Alex decides to write about the incident.
Non-actor Gabe Nevins, as well as the other kids in the movie were recruited through My Space and have to say that Van Sant was able to get a great performance from Nevis as he is a perfect blank faced teen that transmits some of the fear and even paranoia that the character is feeling without dramatics and somehow quite credible for a teenager confused and perhaps angered with bad family problems.
It is remarkable that Van Sant’s style eliminates so many potential dimensions of the story that the film is devoid of the elements audiences normally expect of films, beginning with drama, engagement and insight. On a moment-by-moment basis, one is most often objectively admiring the lovely work of cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose 35mm shooting stands in marked contrast to the raw Super 8 skateboarding footage done by Rain Kathy Li.
Gus Van Sant won the 60th Anniversary Prize and the movie was in competition for the Golden Palm at the 2007 Cannes, also won the producers Award and was nominated for best director and best feature at the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards.
There are some interesting readings in Blake Nelson site about Artforum movie review and what Nelson’s thinks of Van Sant movie; perhaps some of you would like to check them here.
Obviously the film is not for all audiences and just read some non-art cinema lovers viewer’s comments to find that many find this movie “boring”. This is absolutely an art movie that I do recommend to those that like the experimental Van Sant’s style of some of his previous movies and to those that really like art cinema.
Enjoy!!!
Any project that Chris Doyle puts his hands on is bound to be really good...I'm thinking, "Lady in the Water", "Invisible Waves", "Eros", "2046"...so it wasn't such a surprise I loved this movie. More than the story itself (by the way, I could have lived without seeing what happened to the guy who died :( )I enjoyed the way it is told.
ReplyDeleteYeah that scene with the security guard was totally unnecessary, but I imagine that they had to do it to attract younger audiences… that by the way I think will not enjoy this movie even if there are awful scenes like that and many scenes with skateboarding. Well, at least they made some money from that target group until the word about the movie was spread, lol! Yep Doyle is good!
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