Watch Paradise: Love For Free

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Do not be fooled by the title of this movie or by what you see at the surface during these 2 hours. Despite the music, the noises and the bright colors, this is a pretty depressing film. And "depressing" does refer to almost everybody in here. First of all, we have a main character who is looking for true love, but finds pretty much nothing but scam until she joins in the exploitation at the end. Then there is the African men. Their struggles do not necessarily have to do with emotion, but with hoping for a better life and not being afraid of abusing other people emotionally as a consequence of their poverty. And finally, it's the other Austrian women in here. If they do what they do with these African men, it tells me that their life back at their home must be truly unsatisfying and out of balance."Paradise: Love" is the first film from Ulrich Seidl's "Paradise" trilogy. Obviously lots of irony in that title. The other two films are about religion and adolescence/obesity. But back to this one. Seidl was nominated for the Palme d'Or and won Best Picture at the Austrian film Awards. Lead Actress Margarete Tiesel, who carried this film nicely with how likable yet suffering a character she portrayed, won Best Actress at the same event and was also nominated for a European Film award (that went to Riva). The scene when she talks on her daughter's answering machine is pretty heartbreaking. And even if this is probably my least favorite from the trilogy, it was a good watch. No doubt Seidl is among the finest Austria currently has to offer. And even if you do not care for this film or like it in terms of the action, it is still an interesting watch because it takes us into a culture and society that could not be any more different from the one, in which we live. A film that is painful to watch, yet it's difficult to look away. Well done by Seidl and I certainly recommend it.

This is a very sad movie. It explores some of the worst sides of human nature, I should say. To begin with, I can sympathize with Theresa, because her longing for love and sex, although she has become too old and fat for Western European men - is after all a natural thing. I feel sorry for her, when the African men only try to suck her out of more and more money, in a completely shameless way.But then Theresa also changes into someone harder, who does not expect love anymore but just seeks sex on her own terms. She is getting ruthless, and in the end - and in the company of her women friends who are the same - she can even treat a very young man, almost a boy, as if he was some kind of animal... By then she has lost me, and I feel an equal disgust against the Western women and the African men, customers and sellers in the sex trade, alike. I have also lost all desire to visit Africa South of Sahara, ever...The photo is very bleak and dark, and it does not seem very professional. But maybe this is intentional - to make it look more like a documentary or a reality show? I think it would have been more entertaining with Hollywood standard on the photo and filming, though.This is not a movie that you should watch if you are already depressed and have doubts about the human race... And absolutely not in the company of children or teenagers, as there is a lot of nudity here and sex showed in an unpleasant way - the opposite of romantic. But if you want to learn something about what your sister, mother, colleague or friend might have been up to on her "cultural" tour of Gambia or Kenya... you might give it a go!

We enter here a paradisaical world with this woman, a middle-aged Austrian who's gone to Kenya on vacation. We enter as she does, strangers, fascinated. There is no transition to this new world, no waiting on airports, no planning for the journey, we are immediately swept as if by the urge to be there. Once there we see as she does, stylized images, arranged symmetries. In the hotel resort there are trivial games, senile safety, control: the Africans are confections to be toyed with and enjoyed, ranges for the eye to roam. The question that looms is is she there for the encounter and surprise or merely looking for images to bring home to a dull life? You'll see this early in the metaphor with the monkey that takes her bait but refuses to be photographed, eluding her. More importantly: are we here on cinematic vacation or to come to an understanding? Out in the streets there is a more palpable tension however; all about baring yourself to be seen and the quest for meaning. I like the subject, the lush Africa, the sexual frankness, the fact that sex and meaning are sublimated in a viewing space between people.So I believe this could have been tremendously powerful stuff in the right hands. Alas the filmmaker is Austrian and this means that we see in the same stark light they bring to everything they do: from logic to politics to music. What does this mean, a stark light ? It means every encounter has to be sooner rather than later exposed as meaningless, because the ultimate point here is some void at heart, the same that originally creates the journey there, which is also the filmmaker's. It means that he can't let go, and not allowing himself to yet know, coast on the tension of an encounter that may be false, that most probably is false, yet like movies and love work in life, that we can throw ourselves in it as if it is real and in doing so imbue it with truth, weave it from air. A Mood for Love with a question behind each glance. I'm dreaming of the film Cassavetes would do: all about building to this more or less certain horizon of betrayal with momentary truths, small moments like passing a joint in the dark, riding this tension, hiding the logical knowledge. So I lament this because his failure is the same as his heroine's failure to find fulfillment. He resorts to more obvious stuff, merely chronicling the lack: disillusionment, loneliness and how that gives rise to dehumanizing spectacle as in the scene where the woman is offered in her hotel room a witless African to tease and fondle. Ordinary.You can even see this reluctance in his camera when now and then he lets it wander: we don't deeply feel the textures, we are never truly enmeshed in the world. Again this is as much cinematic translation of the woman's pov as it is inescapable worldview for the filmmaker, the same boxed worldview that Herzog runs from by journeying to the edges to throw himself on the manifold strangeness of things, letting his eye roam, staging boats tugged over hills so it can become real.

Unfortunately, Paradies: Liebe doesn't really meet my criteria for a thought-provoking cinematic masterpiece and I have to say there is usually much better stuff in Cannes to watch than this. Then again, the subject may be interesting for age groups of 40+ where aging, feeling of belonging, dream of true everlasting love etc is definitely much more relevant. For me, the movie felt empty and a bit too slow. There were some interesting clues left to point finger on how the Western world is dealing with the 3rd world problem or how shallow most people are in foreign cultures but other than that, it was a rather painful trip through a world of grotesque reality.To sum up: go and see if you're a huge fan of social criticism or Ulrich Seidl, otherwise don't waste your time please. Although I have to admit, the movie did create some interest towards Seidl's other works, as the underlying idea was good, just the execution lacked and I hope the other works in the series work out better. Overall 5/10 from a demanding movie-goer.