Cannes. Paranoid Park.

"[I]t shouldn't necessarily mean much to you when I assert that [Gus] Van Sant's new film, Paranoid Park, is precisely the lyrical and evocative portrait of contemporary adolescence that everybody mistakenly thought Elephant was," writes Mike D'Angelo at ScreenGrab. See, he's just gone on a bit about how much he well and truly despises Elephant. "All the same, this brilliantly schizoid tale of Alex (sensational newcomer Gabe Nevins), a high school skate punk with a guilty conscience, digs into the teenage mindset with a clarity and eloquence that Elephant, with its distracting (and, to my mind, obscene) echoes of real-world tragedy, couldn't possibly achieve."

Blake Nelson, the author of the novel, is in Cannes with the cast and crew and has been blogging, snapping photos and such and just seems generally - and quite understandably! - excited about the whole affair.

Kirk Honeycutt argues that, with this Competition entry, Van Sant "is more open to what he finds, keen to absorbing the quotidian details of one particular boy's life and of the crisis suddenly thrust upon him. So he has made one of his best movies yet, recapturing the magic of his fine earlier works such as Mala Noche and Drugstore Cowboy."

Also in the Hollywood Reporter, Gregg Goldstein talks with Van Sant.

For Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, Paranoid Park is "a visually lovely, semi-experimental riff on Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment that has almost no point of contact with actual human existence.... Van Sant wants his brief, deadpan, underpopulated scenes - some of them shot on 8 mm video, others with overlaid music so we don't hear the dialogue - to feel more like real teen existence than the clichés of mainstream cinema. It's a worthy goal, but I'm afraid the actual effect is the opposite. How did these sweet kids get trapped in a middle-aged art film, and how can we get them out?"

Cinematical's James Rocchi: "The ugly fact is that Van Sant's recent modus operandi has crossed the line from 'groove' to 'rut' - he's become the filmmaking equivalent of Dazed and Confused's Wooderson: He gets older, but his protagonists stay the same age.... I have to wonder when - or if - the fierce filmmaking of his earlier career will return."

Updates, 5/22: "The film's visual beauty is so striking - in one shot Alex skateboards against a midnight-blue light, framed by glossy green shrubbery - that it takes a while to appreciate that the images are doing most of the narrative work," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times.

"Aesthetically in line with Gerry, Elephant and Last Days, this is a rarified, arid artwork that will register with Van Sant's hardcore fans but leave anyone looking for more conventional satisfactions, notably teenagers themselves, impatient and unfulfilled," writes Variety's Todd McCarthy. "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.... Casting was done via MySpace, and young thesps are generally all right, although a bit stiff at moments." There. I think that gets at some of the elements I skipped over in the other reviews while trying to get to the gists.

Alex's "uncle is played by cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose appearance on screen caused a ripple of amusement in the Cannes audience," notes Wendy Ide in the London Times. As for the cinematography, "There's perhaps a little too much of that Doyle trademark from his Wong Kar Wai collaborations, the languid slow motion sequence, for example. But for the most part, Doyle contributes a lot to this atmospheric mood piece without, as can be the case with some of his recent projects, creatively dominating the film."

Then, another thing: "It is worth mentioning that this is the first film in the festival which addresses the war in Iraq, albeit through an abortive attempt at a debate between one politically motivated teen with a rather more apathetic friend. It's not going to appease the critics who wonder why cinema has been largely silent on a issue which has dominated the news for the last four years, but it's a start."

Paranoid Park "may not be Palme d'Or material - too particular, too hermetic - but it's damn brilliant anyway," writes Erica Abeel for Filmmaker. "More than anything, it's Leslie Shatz's sound design, a thing of genius, that conveys Gabe's turmoil. By layering snippets of music over murmuring voices, the whirring of bobbins - and occasionally bird calls - Shatz captures the equivalent of mental 'noise,' the sound of consciousness, our waking dreams and nightmares. Sometimes, to keep us off balance, he plays against expectations, layering some jaunty Nino Rota over a scene where Alex blows off his girlfriend. If anyone merits a prize so far in this fest, it's Leslie Shatz."

Dennis Lim, writing for IFC News, finds Paranoid "both modest and masterful, the work of a wholly relaxed filmmaker in peak form."

More "enthusiastic approval" from Premiere's Glenn Kenny.

Updates, 5/23: "[I]t may be a stretch, but the film might just have something larger to say about responsibility in the violent age of the Iraq War where denial and apathy have supplanted accountability," suggests Anthony Kaufman at indieWIRE.

Emmanuel Bourdeau for Cahiers du cinéma on Van Sant: "His art is extremely fluid, but that fluidity takes risks, foresees accidents and integrates the possibility of them as he glides along."

Update, 5/25: "Every shot of the film feels electric," writes Patrick Z McGavin at Stop Smiling. "The use of objects and locations, like a narrow tunnel that skateboarders traverse with surgical grace, transmutes a lyrical and poetic intensity of longing, regret and wonder. The ink-black nighttime photography is especially acute in sustaining the film's eerie tone."

Update, 5/26: "Van Sant's hero is played by Adonis newcomer Gabe Nevins with all the vitality and complexity of a gay teen centrefold," writes Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times. "There is something sickly about the film's posing of him in endless tableaux of synthetic Passion - a Saint Sebastian in the shower, a Jesus in the nocturnal Gethsemane of the skateboarding park - while the soundtrack woos us with selections of everything from heavy rock to JS Bach."

Update, 5/29: "Paranoid Park is less immediately shocking than Elephant or sorrowful as Last Days but in its own quiet way, it surpasses both," writes Matt Singer at IFC News. "Van Sant's technique is incredibly confident and he's increasingly comfortable in this slightly avant-garde mode that's defined his decade of filmmaking. All of his choices, right down to the way he never shows Alex's parents on camera save for one crucial moment, feel right."

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Cannes @ 60. Index.

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Posted by dwhudson at May 21, 2007 1:32 PM