PARADISE: HOPE

PARADISE: HOPE (PARADIES: HOFFNUNG), 2013
Austria, Germany, France | HDD, Color, 92’ | German
Director: Ulrich Seidl
Cast: Melanie Lenz, Verena Lehbauer, Joseph Lorenz

The vacation in the final film of the Paradise trilogy takes place in a diet camp where Teresa’s lonely and sensitive 13-year-old daughter Melanie goes to lose weight. A Lolita story about the relationship between Melanie and the camp’s charismatic doctor, the film displays the observational and critical power of the director whose narrative style once again shuttles back and forth between fiction and documentary, while approaching the flaws of its characters with more warmth and kindness compared to the first two films. The bluntly edited, short, tableau-like scenes, which are the trilogy’s signature, attempt to describe the hollow concept of paradise through cinematic elements such as casting both professional and nonprofessional actors and not using music unless it is diegetic.

*The sexual / violent content in some of the scenes in this film may disturb some viewers.