Smells like teen spirit

Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant's mesmerizing new movie, melds the dreamy languor of his last few films (Gerry,Elephant, Last Days) with a page-turner of a plot. The camera still floats lazily behind the protagonists as they take long, rambling walks. But these walks actually lead somewhere.

That's not to say Paranoid Park, which Van Sant adapted from Blake Nelson's young-adult novel, unfolds in a straight line. As the film's narrator, the teenaged skateboarder Alex (Gabe Nevins) warns us early on, ``Sorry this is a little out of order. I didn't do so well in creative writing.''

Chronology is a key factor in Paranoid Park, which doesn't always let us know whether we're watching past, present or future, and occasionally replays moments we've already seen, revealing significance in previously mundane details.

Even though the subject of Paranoid Park -- Alex's growing guilt over his involvement in the accidental and unspeakably gruesome death of a security guard -- is dead-serious, the movie finds Van Sant in a creatively playful mood, using unexpected musical cues (from Beethoven to old Fellini film scores) and complex sound designs to illustrate the inner state of his characters. In one scene, the cacophonous sound of birds plunges us into the churning stress and anxiety Alex is feeling. In another, a musical melody drowns out the bad news Alex's girlfriend Jennifer (Taylor Momsen, from TV's Gossip Girl) is reacting to in unfortunate fashion.

The somewhat irreverent nature of Paranoid Park extends to the film's visuals. Cinematographer Christopher Doyle keeps Alex's parents out of focus for almost the entire movie to illustrate the disconnect between adolescents and their guardians. When Alex's father, oblivious to the quandary his son is struggling with, asks him ''How's school going?'' the scene is strangely funny, a sad reminder of the no-one-understands-me angst every teenager inevitably feels at some point.

In Alex's case, though, that isolation has a precise reason for being. Nevins, who like many of the film's other actors answered a casting call Van Sant posted on MySpace, has an awkward, halting delivery and manner that makes Alex's inexpressive nature seem all the more real. Unlike most Hollywood films about high school life, the kids in Paranoid Park feel like just that -- kids -- which gives their dilemmas, such as losing their virginity or breaking up with their partner, the same gravity you felt when you went through it.

Paranoid Park takes its title from a skateboarding park where Alex starts to hang out, and the movie is peppered with interludes of Super-8 photography of skaters flying through the air, performing balletic stunts on their boards, oblivious to matters of gravity or injury or anything else that takes place in the world below. It is down in that world that Alex is stranded, weighed down by his conscience over a murder along with the usual issues of girlfriends and schoolwork and chatty little brothers. The story of Paranoid Park may center on an extreme and unusual case, but it's Van Sant's understanding of -- and compassion for -- the hell of growing up that makes the film such a profound and lasting pleasure.

NOTE: As of Tuesday, Paranoid Park was scheduled to open today at the Intracoastal and Gateway cinemas in South Florida. Unfortunately, distributor IFC Films bumped the release to May 16 at the last minute and did not alert us to the change. Sorry for the confusion.

Comments

[miguel]

Unclean, Rene! I was excited to read
your PP review this morning in the
paper, but it turns out someone goofed.
Neither of the theaters listed as screening
the film are actually screening the film!
In fact, I can't find any theater screening
the film in all south Florida.

[VHS 4 Ever!]

Yes, but is this movie in blu-ray?

[Rene Rodriguez]

I just spoke with IFC Films, the distributor of the movie, and they informed me that Paranoid Park won't open in South Florida until May. Unfortunately, they forgot to tell us about this. As of Tuesday, the movie was still scheduled to open this week. So we'll have to wait a little longer.

[Chris]

May?

LOL 2: Electric Bugaloo