The last installment of the Paradise trilogy is Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise: Hope, a coming-of-age film about a teenage girl who develops a crush on a doctor at a camp for overweight teens. Although this film is by far Seidl’s least daring and challenging film of the series (and his career for that matter), there is still a lot to admire about it. Considering the trilogy portrays the dark side of our basic human desire for an unattainable paradise, this film offers the slightest bit a hope to conclude an otherwise somber series of films.

13-year-old Melanie (Melanie Lenz) is dropped off at a summer camp for overweight teens by her aunt Anna Maria (the obsessed religious lead from Paradise: Faith). Immediately upon arrival Melanie makes friends with the three girls that she shares a room with. It is not all that surprising that the first secret the newly formed group share with each other are candy bars that one of the girls snuck into the camp. As the girls spend more time together the conversations become more intimate; shifting from dishing about their parents to gossiping about sexual encounters. At the same time her mother Teresa is off seeking love as a tourist in Kenya (as seen in Paradise: Love), Melanie is searching for her own first love at the diet camp.

It becomes quite obvious that Melanie is falling for the middle-aged camp doctor (Joseph Lorenz) when he first examines her and she jumps at the opportunity to listen to his heartbeat. Each day she continues to fake symptoms in order to see him. You can practically hear her heart eagerly pounding as her crush on him continues to grow exponentially. But behind the doctor’s smile and frisky playfulness you get a sense that the feelings are more mutual than they should be.

Teenage love for someone who is older is not all that uncommon and is innocent enough, but given that this is a film by the provocative Ulrich Seidl, you come to expect that not everything in Paradise: Hope would be playful and innocent. But this is where Seidl throws his usual twist into the mix. While there are certainly hints that the doctor shares the same sexual interests as the young girl, he surprisingly never acts on them. As with his previous films, there are some uncomfortable situations that turn disturbing, however, instead of forcing the audience to actually witness such explicit scenes the filmmaker merely implies the vexing circumstances could exist.

The overall theme found throughout Paradise: Hope is discipline. The most obvious instance of this is near the beginning when the counselor makes everyone shout the word ‘discipline’ and tells them it is the only thing that will get them into shape. There are several other occurrences of discipline shown like when punishment is handed out after the girls disobey the rules of the camp. But less apparent usage of discipline is presented when the doctor’s willpower overcomes his desire to engage with Melanie. The film itself practices what it preaches by restraining what is actually shown on screen and what it implies.

Paradise: Hope does not have the same level of exploration in exploitation as the other two films in the trilogy. That makes this film feel a bit disconnected from the series, but consequently makes for Seidl’s most accessible film to date. Yet the irony here is that Seidl’s most straightforward film plot wise is also the one that is the least blunt in showing its intentions. Still, it all comes together when you put the film in the context of the overall theme of the Paradise series, which is a dark portrayal of the human desire to achieve paradise on earth.

Paradise: Hope trailer:

A highly anticipated screening I attended here at Berlinale was Ulrich Seidl’s third installment of his Paradise trilogy, Paradise: Hope. I have only seen one other film in the Paradise trilogy, which was Paradise: Love, but this did not impact my reception or understanding of the film, as Paradise: Hope is perfectly capable of standing alone because it runs parallel to the other two films.

I have always appreciated the efforts of taking traditional story-lines and presenting them in exceptionally non-traditional ways. Paradise: Hope tells the usual story of desire for a love unattainable and the potential security that might come with it. This desire, however, is found between a thirteen year-old girl, Melanie–at a diet camp in Austria–and the camp’s fifty-something year old doctor. It is a coming of age film, and a journey of self-discovery for both sides of situation. In between the camp’s strict regimen of exercise and nutrition classes, hilariously presented, the youth of the camp spend their time being curious and frustrated pubescent teens. The film keeps a steady pace, splitting its time between the love story of the doctor and Melanie, the antics of being in the camp.

Paradise: Hope is very minimalistic. This is accented in the fact that the entire camp, consisting of twenty-four kids, is held on a massive campus. Seidl succeeds in keeping the story on track, regardless of the extreme nature of the setting, by ignoring societal norms that would otherwise carry issue. The doctor is never demonized, and the question of age is never addressed; to the point that when Melanie asks the doctor why they cannot be together, age is not brought up.

Aesthetically, the film takes advantage of long takes, as well as owning the silence that often falls between the doctor and Melanie. Both actors are brilliant at expressing themselves without words, and when they do speak the words are simple and short, further adding to Seidl’s minimalism. Repetition and patterns in action mimic the diet camps call for discipline, which serves as an overall metaphor for shaping youth to fit into an adult world.

The film also has an exceptionally organic feel to the image with natural light elements, diffusion, and stark film grain. This organic feel adds to the idea of adolescent growth and development. I found Paradise: Hope to carry a powerful voice in telling a rich and involving story about life, love and growth. However, I will add its minimalism, symbolism, and foreign nature might not please everybody, but I would definitely say it is worth a look.

A professor of mine once made a startling statement. He believes that the current generation is the last that will experience movies in actual theaters. He has some good reasoning for this claim: the fact that instant home entertainment is becoming more and more available, the fact that technology is leading to better and better home theaters for the average individual, and–most significantly–that social interaction is now achieved without physical contact.

Seeing a film in the theater is a very social thing, regardless of how frowned upon it is to speak once the lights dim. Being part of an audience totally engrossed in a film is powerful. There is energy. There is presence. There is a sense of community involvement, as hundred of us gather to spend two hours of our lives in a dark room together, experiencing a story, told by people we do not know, but somehow seems to speak to each of us individually.

What marks a film festival as a truly unique cinematic experience is the audience. Each morning when get off the S-Bahn in Potsdam Hof, I exit the station via the Arkan Galaria–directly across from the Cinemaxx and Berlinale Palast. Every morning the same scene meets my eyes: hundreds of people camping out in a line spanning the length of the mall. Some in sleeping bags, others in fold out chairs; but each with a copy of the program open upon their lap, pen in hand, circling the screenings they hope to get tickets to. This is not a line for the midnight showing of some highly anticipated blockbuster hit. This is not even a line for a festival premiere, as most–particularly for the big name films–have long been sold out. This is a line for the 5:15pm showing of an Indonesian drama by a director no one has heard of. This is the line 10:00am screening of a documentary concerning an issue many never knew was an issue. People are here just for the chance to participate. This is dedication to the art, and brings a whole new energy into the theater. This is cinema.

Don Jon’s Addiction

I had the opportunity to attend both the press screening and the festival premiere of Don Jon’s Addiction. Because of the energy of the general public–enhanced by the fact that the director, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was in the theater–I had a much better time in the premiere screening. This being said, there is a reason I chose to view this film twice. Gordon-Levitt’s feature directorial debut with this film was nothing shy of brilliant.

The character of Jon Martello comes from what would be the typical caste of a Jersey Shore Guido. He is a lady killer, obsessed with appearance, and ends each night out with his boys by taking home an 8 or better. He doesn’t hide the fact that he is in it for the short haul with these ladies (which makes it a surprise to his friends and family when he decides to take a break from his “streak” to focus on just one girl). “The most beautiful girl in the world,” according to Jon. When Jon is not fulfilling his life with his girls, family, boys, body, and car, he spends his time focused on his other true passion: pornography. Jon loves pornography better than actual sex, because he is able to “lose himself” in it. To him, it is perfect satisfaction without work or expectations. When his girlfriend discovers his hobby, she leaves, and Jon is forced to cope with the fact that his need for porn is a result of an inability to truly connect within a relationship.

There are several cinematic elements Gordon-Levitt uses to present his original story in a satisfying and memorable way. Moments of repetition in both sound and image–used to identify patterns and habits in Jon’s life–juxtaposes starkly against the meticulous shot diversity that makes up the most of the movie. In the first half of the film, the same shot is never repeated, and the camera is always in motion via pushes, pulls, quick pans, and steady glides within dialog, evoking a feeling of calm. Everything is new, and everything is smooth–like the beginning of a new relationship. The music is intentionally overly romantic in a fairy tale manner. As the story progresses and conflict is introduced, the style of shooting transitions to shaky, handheld shots that hold much longer within each scene, and the moments of earlier repetition (such as Jon’s experiences in church and at the gym) begin to vary more and more as the character begins to transform.

In all, the film tells a great, original story that is both humorous and critical. Don Jon’s Addiction makes a statement about allowing media to set unrealistic expectations in out lives, and the dangers of allowing these expectations to dominate our experience. The film managed to pull a great deal of laughter from both audiences I experienced, and in a press conference following the film, Gordon-Levitt said he believes the best way to tackle difficult issues is through humor, citing films like Dr. Strangelove as his inspiration. As stated, a brilliant debut from a very talented individual, and I think we can expect great things to come as Joseph Gordon-Levitt begins to branch out in work.

RATING: 9.8

Paradise: Hope (Capsule review)

The other highly anticipated screening I attended was Ulrich Seidl’s third installment of his Paradise trilogy, Paradise: Hope. I have only seen one other film in the Paradise trilogy, which was Paradise: Love, but this did not impact my reception or understanding of the film, as Paradise: Hope is perfectly capable of standing alone because it runs parallel to the other two films.

Full Paradise: Hope review

COMING UP: The theme of sex and pornography is proving to be a overarching theme in many of the films in the festival, having begun with Don Jon. On Saturday the film, Lovelace, a story about the making of the 1970’s porno Deepthroat, will screen and continue to examine this topic. The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, as well as a shorts program and a British film called The Look of Love will also be on the Saturday agenda.