The Swinging Bridge

Issue date: 10/2/08 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: google images

If Paranoid Park were a caffeinated beverage, it would be a caramel macchiato: more accessible than the espresso-like snobbery of most modern indie films, yet more mature and sophisticated than the overly sweet, too-eager-to-please frappuccino of blockbusters.

Gus Van Sant, the film's writer and director most famous for his Oscar nominated direction of Good Will Hunting, is the cinematographic barista, mixing in the perfect details, artistic shots, and bits of dialogue to create a refreshingly honest glimpse of California high school life. Paranoid Park follows the internal life of Alex, a skateboarder and high school student caught up in the death of a local security guard.

While the premise contains potential for action sequences, gore, and contrived suspense, Van Sant avoids these negative genre stereotypes. The other traditional genre flaw of thirty-year-old actors playing high school students is absent from Paranoid Park as well. Van Sant ensured authenticity by casting the film through ads on myspace.com. The results: delightful under-acting and slow pacing.

The skaters don't act like movie characters; they act like high school kids. Instead of throwing off a witty one-liner about a detective's awkward name, they just giggle and smirk at each other. The dialogue doesn't further the plot; it sets the scene realistically. Alex's journal entries read more like late night telephone conversations than omniscient narration or dramatic epiphanies (the Sex and the City movie should have taken a lesson from this).

Although the plot itself stems from an unlikely situation and includes highly dramatic moments, Van Sant's restraint avoids any of the sensationalism which could easily result from the subject matter. An important breakup scene dodges the sentimental tears and clichés by playing music over the dialogue. Instead of hearing high school students muse about what love means and what the future holds, you see the gamut of emotions in a few eyebrow twitches and scowls. Taylor Momsen (who played Cindy Lou Who in the Jim Carrey Grinch revival as a child) delivers the film's most memorable performance in this scene. Even without dialogue, her heavily lined eyes and well-arched eyebrows effectively convey more high school angst than a Laguna Beach box set.

The dialogue that is included sounds like hallway chat. The skater boys mumble and don't discuss their feelings with each other. The girls have different tones of voice for cell phone conversations and interpersonal conversations.

The film's authenticity is punctuated by the incidental pop culture references. A small child misquotes Napoleon Dynamite in a lengthy monologue. A skater evokes a barista's wrath by asking for a frappuccino at an independent coffee shop. Van Sant even caught details like the carefully shaggy haircuts and slouched manner of carrying backpacks.

While the plot contains considerably dramatic elements, the film's climax is not on their resolution, but more realistically, on Alex's personal catharsis. This can cause the action to lag for those accustomed to fast-paced plot development.

This Cannes film festival winner is by no means a traditional, exciting popcorn movie. Alex and a friend, skating at the film's introduction, discuss their evening plans. When Alex suggests his hesitance at visiting the ominous, full fledged Paranoid Park, his friend comments, "No one is ever really ready for Paranoid Park." Yes, subtlety is unexpected, but I, for one, could get ready for many more movies like this.

Paranoid Park is playing in Parmer Cinema on Friday, October 17 and Saturday, October 18. Showings are at 7:00 PM and 9:30 PM both days, with an additional showing at 4:30 PM on Saturday. Tickets are $1.

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