One of the many fascinating things about Paranoid Park is its use of visual motifs rather than a strictly sequential narrative. For the most part, the sequential narrative is there (I had no difficulty following it) but there are also brief shots of past and future events. One of them occurs at the very beginning when we see Alex, the film's teen-aged protagonist, writing the title in an awkward backhand. The shot is repeated an hour later when Alex, at the suggestion of his friend Macy, writes about an initiation experience that involved hopping a freight train with an older acquaintance and accidentally killing a security guard.
The guard's death in the freight yard is far from clean and painless. There's a horrifying sequence in which the guard, still alive but with his legs severed from his body after falling under a freight train, gazes silently at Alex. When Alex runs away it's with the same helpless dread we feel when we see graphic pictures of what's happening in Iraq.
Although Paranoid Park's portrayal of American teen-aged life is very current, Alex, seated alone on a windswept beach, writes his story in longhand rather than on a laptop computer. This distinction emphasizes what may be the film's most unusual theme: the power of putting words to paper. It's on paper that he eventually burns that Alex says what he knows better than to tell a sympathetic police investigator, his parents, or his girlfriend.
Although the film's action is primarily among young men, there are also women. Alex's mother quizzes him about where he was on the morning after the freight yard incident but she's easily satisfied with his vague responses. She doesn't really want to know more. More significant are Alex's girlfriend, Jennifer, and his perceptive non-girlfriend, Macy. Jennifer is eager for sex with Alex and, after it happens in her bedroom, excitedly calls a friend to tell her how great it was. For Alex sex with Jennifer was more of a social obligation than anything else. In writer/director Gus Van Sant's only misstep, Jennifer seems more like a young woman who'd go out with popular jocks rather than with Alex the soulful slacker. When he's broken up with Jennifer and the movie ends, we hope he takes up with Macy.
I suppose Paranoid Park may become known as a skateboard movie. The title refers to an outlaw site that skateboarders have built below a Portland, Oregon freeway. Another repeated motif is a conversation between Alex and a male friend in which Alex doubts that he's skilled enough for Paranoid Park. "No one's ever ready for Paranoid Park," his friend says. Throughout the film are shots of buff young men skateboarding, sometimes dangerously. However, the images are not "perfect" as they usually are in surfing or skiing movies. Alex and other skateboarders frequently make mistakes and sometimes get hurt.
The guard's death in the freight yard is far from clean and painless. There's a horrifying sequence in which the guard, still alive but with his legs severed from his body after falling under a freight train, gazes silently at Alex. When Alex runs away it's with the same helpless dread we feel when we see graphic pictures of what's happening in Iraq.
Although Paranoid Park's portrayal of American teen-aged life is very current, Alex, seated alone on a windswept beach, writes his story in longhand rather than on a laptop computer. This distinction emphasizes what may be the film's most unusual theme: the power of putting words to paper. It's on paper that he eventually burns that Alex says what he knows better than to tell a sympathetic police investigator, his parents, or his girlfriend.
Although the film's action is primarily among young men, there are also women. Alex's mother quizzes him about where he was on the morning after the freight yard incident but she's easily satisfied with his vague responses. She doesn't really want to know more. More significant are Alex's girlfriend, Jennifer, and his perceptive non-girlfriend, Macy. Jennifer is eager for sex with Alex and, after it happens in her bedroom, excitedly calls a friend to tell her how great it was. For Alex sex with Jennifer was more of a social obligation than anything else. In writer/director Gus Van Sant's only misstep, Jennifer seems more like a young woman who'd go out with popular jocks rather than with Alex the soulful slacker. When he's broken up with Jennifer and the movie ends, we hope he takes up with Macy.
I suppose Paranoid Park may become known as a skateboard movie. The title refers to an outlaw site that skateboarders have built below a Portland, Oregon freeway. Another repeated motif is a conversation between Alex and a male friend in which Alex doubts that he's skilled enough for Paranoid Park. "No one's ever ready for Paranoid Park," his friend says. Throughout the film are shots of buff young men skateboarding, sometimes dangerously. However, the images are not "perfect" as they usually are in surfing or skiing movies. Alex and other skateboarders frequently make mistakes and sometimes get hurt.