Film

Paradise

Paradise

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Cert:(adv 12A)
Dir. Michael Almereyda
USA, 82 mins, 2009
Cast: Documentary

UK Premiere



The Short film
Wedlock will screen before this film.

A boy of about seven in a Middle Eastern country tries not to cry after falling into a pool of water; a photographer sinks into the snow after a walk downhill to take a picture; a drunken college student explains how he still sheds a tear each time he hears Napoleon’s name… Assembled from a decade’s worth of home movie footage over two years and by three editors, complete with a subtle structure that’s there for the taking (if you want it), Almereyda’s is a film of opened-out meanings that hints at ineffable mystery in the world. Curated and processed from what already exists, this is a collage of what the critic Manny Farber called ‘termite art’, unpretentiously eating away at the borders to leave us with flashes of transcendence. On the title, one could not put it better than Almereyda himself: “If you are open to experience and noticing people around you, I happen to think that that is as good as it gets.” And that’s the key to this utterly uplifting, amazing film.

Courtesy of Michael Almereyda/Post Factory NY

Read Film Programmer Tom Vincent's take on Paradise, on the National Media Museum Blog.

Other films showing as part of Moviedrome are:

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