Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, 2007)

Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, 2007)
Rating: 6.8

The film begins with a gorgeous time lapse shot of a bridge and a piece from a Nino Rota score before the nonlinear story intercut with consumer grade video clips of skating teenagers gets underway. Van Sant later returns to an even more beautiful time lapse scene during a storm after the most pivotal scene in the film. The film isn't short on striking imagery, but it is lacking in adequate acting. Throughout the film, the main character named Alex dictates the letter he is writing which reveals a gruesome accident he was involved in. The narration is seriously grating; it's like in grade school when kids are asked to read a passage from the textbook out loud only the material is much less articulate. I also found the gratuitous use of unmotivated slow motion shots became tedious, not to mention the over the top eclectic for the sake of it soundtrack which probably included double digit genres ranging from Beethoven, experimental/electronic, jazz, country/folk, Elliott Smith, hip-hop, opera, metal, as well as sporadic pieces of Nino Rotas scores from Amarcord and Juliette of Spirits as mentioned before. I was most impressed with the sound design for a film of such a small scale. There is some really great stuff going on during the shower scene, railroad scene, among others, but my favorite part was when Alex's internal thought process is running through his head; dialgue overlaps with different echoes and reverbs making for a great effect.