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Review by David DiMichele

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Nobody likes to be alone when entering Paranoid Park, a skateboarder's heaven underneath a Portland city bridge, because the kids that hang out here are rebels, loners and misfits. Most kids fear they may not be ready for  a park that demands the highest of talent. Even though our character Alex is aware that he's unready, he still trots over with his skateboard in hand, just out of curiosity. Eventually he'll find out why he's not ready for Paranoid Park because the events that come after shake up his already discombobulated life.

Legendary director Gus Van Sant uses Blake Nelson's book as a guide for this film. In the director's latest look at the troubled youth of one's life, he conveys a similar idea to Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" (which I'm reading right now). Alex (Gabe Nevins), unlike Dostoyevsky's character, doesn't premeditate the crime to come.

Alex's face is as blank as a painter's canvas and Van Sant takes this opportunity to flush his face of everything except one thing: paranoia. Alex is responsible for a murder. The murder accidentally happened to a security guard who was guarding train tracks right near Paranoid Park. He watches for people hopping freight trains and Alex is hopping for the first time. The death of the security man may look and seem silly but Alex will never forget the man's agonized face.

With films such as "My Own Private Idaho," "Elephant" and "Last Days", Van Sant takes full advantage of the alienated worlds of youth. All of it leads to tragic happenings for his characters. Alex is no different from River Phoenix's character in "Idaho" or Michael Pitt's character in "Last Days." Van Sant's meaning hits hard after the tragic event when Alex has absolutely no one he can come clean to. He feels no emotion towards his parents who are going through a nasty divorce, nor for a classmate who is trying to reach out and become more than just a friend. Ecstasy even takes a back seat while he has sex with his virginal girlfriend. He is like a walking zombie who has no one he can talk to.

The movie is made very differently and sure as hell no Hollywood formula or rules apply here. Van Sant likes to feed his audience with raw and depressing emotion, with film that lingers in your mind for a few days. "Paranoid Park" is no different. This isn't about whether he gets caught or not, nor is it about the procedure the police go through to get Alex. He needs to get this incident off his chest. It's about Alex's odyssey through a world where he has no connection with any other human being. As the movie begins, Alex tells us that he didn't do to well in creative writing and telling this story will seem a little out of place. It's told in a nonlinear narrative - a friend advises him to write down whatever is bugging him and as he does so, that's when we discover what's going on. Van Sant fuses music from Beethoven to the legendary Nina Rota in order to create an atmosphere of unbearable tension for us and for Alex.

In between, Van Sant teases us with interludes of homemade videos of kids skating around various areas of the dreary and depressing Portland neighborhood. This atmosphere is made possible by cinematographer Christopher Doyle. It's hard to make something out of these particular shots. A skateboarder goes through his profession taking risky jumps that either pay off or don't. They go up, down, over, under and around objects. But we rarely see Alex skate. He gets pulled on his board by a friend on a bike and even a local skater uses his board more than he does. Alex is in awe of the kids at Paranoid doing all sorts of tricks while he just sits and watches for hours. The life he lives probably never has any emotion or adventurous jumps over, under, or around anything. A dismal life that only gets worse by the time we last see Alex.

Film Rating: *** 1/2 out of 4

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