Paranoid Park

Images of the film Paranoid Park are visually very neutral: the shots of the main character Alex and his friends, their movements, gestures, dialogues, communication with parents. Interesting is the realization that emphasizes everyday life routine to almost hypnotic dizziness. The director is using different image speeds, switches from 8mm to 35mm material, combines the angles of the camera, sets aside actions surrounding the main character. Van Sant’s unusual film is liberating in a fact that conceives the human deficiency as an initiatory existential moment. Film feels like hallucination or feverishly composing consciousness after unique life experience, shortly erased from memory. Paranoid Park captivated the editorial of prestige magazine Cahiers du Cinema so much that they identified this film as one of the most interesting ones in the year 2007.