Review #8 (SPECIAL): A Comprehensive Analysis of "Paranoid Park" (SPOILERS)

(Do Not Read If You Do Not Want "Paranoid Park" or "Mullholland Dr." Ruined)

This is the latest in the line of Gus Van Sant's "experimental" indie films -- others include 2003's Elephant, about a Columbine-like shooting, and 2005's Last Daysa fictionalized account of Kurt Cobain's death.

However, Paranoid Park doesn't parallel a real event. It's about a teen skateboarder, Alex, that tries to fit in with another crowd of boarders that hang out by the east side stake park known as Paranoid Park. Alex is journaling an account of events that lead up to his possible involvement in the murder of a cop. Now, I say possible because even though we do see accidental push an officer onto a railroad track (in gruesome detail), we discover that once or twice, a scene he wrote down is played back and there are a few minuet differences. This leads us to conclude that Alex is an unreliable narrator. He is so lost in the world with no real self-identity and desperately wants to not only fit in with the boarders at Paranoid Park, but also expresses deep desires to experience the unknown. He is similar to Naomi Watts in Mullholland Dr., in the way that he wants to make a reality in which his life has this element that changes him so he doesn't have to face the fact that he is just pain old Alex. Alex wants so desperately to believe that he did it, so he isn't just another figure fading into the background -- and he never tells anyone, because he doesn't need to convince anyone other than himself.

Paranoid Park, much like Van Sant's most recent project, Milk, is almost too modest. There is great "in depth" camera work here, but there are no classic twist and turns. This is a really stuck-up comment to make, but its too bland, too original maybe. If feel is as though there is so many new idea's and characters, but simultaneously think that you take the kids from "Brick", dumb them down, give 1/200th the amount of dialogue and allusions to noir, and you would have Paranoid Park. We spend the film in Alex's head, but it never feels like a true portrayal of the guilt that one might have after committing such a riveting and irrevocable crime. He is the same solemn quiet teenage boy from begining to end, which causes me to ask, what really happend?

-- Ari S.

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