Paradise is Burning follows teenage sisters Laura, Mira and Steffi as they find themselves left to their own devices by an absent mother and so descend into a hedonistic summer of drinking and running deliciously wild. Their paradise is soon threatened by a phone call from the authorities checking in on them however, and at 16, eldest sister Laura (Bianca Delbravo) scrambles to find a woman who is willing to play their mother for an impending showdown with Social Services. As the girls’ lives unravel, the initial heady pace slows to almost a painful degree and it becomes clear their boisterous days cannot last forever.
Chaotic and intimate, Gustafson captures the balancing act of sisterhood which at once encompasses brutality and tenderness. The kinetic, fly-on-the-wall-style camerawork mirrors the girls’ lack of stability and cinematographer Sine Vadstrup Brooker juxtaposes her images with a wonderfully soft score and colour grading. Indeed, everything within the frame channels a hopefulness that adds to the film’s mesmerising lyricism.
A young, female, working-class community is also warmly depicted through joyous ensemble scenes. The central protagonists, who can often be found breaking into people’s swimming pools for an afternoon of sun-soaked dancing and hysterics, create a pocket of safety for themselves set apart from an outside world which shuns their existence. Refusing to conform to any contemporary standards of femininity, they are filled with justified rage, a state of being that is epitomised by a bloody fight between 12 year-old Mira (Dilvin Asaad) and another girl on the school playground.
Gustafson’s tangible, vivacious vision of sisterhood does however, struggle to stick the landing and, as the credits roll, we are left with a longing for something a little more… substantial. ‘Kids fending for themselves’ is a genre well-established by the likes of Kings of Summer, The Florida Project and Taika Waititi’s Boy, and although we do immediately become invested in the lives of these characters (and appreciate its rare portrait of poverty in one of the world’s richest countries), Gustafon does fall short of offering us something truly fresh.
There are brief gestures towards larger notions of robbed youths, particularly for Laura whose exploration of her sexuality is curbed by the need to be an impromptu mother to her younger sisters, but Gustafson’s rendering of an abundance of joy despite an absence of wealth, although done well, stumbles through the final half-hour still trying to figure out what to say as it is saying it.
Much like a firework display the sisters witness as a local funfair, the youth of Laura, Mira and Steffi in ‘Paradise is Burning’ is fleeting and bright, often violent yet wholeheartedly beautiful in a film which, despite capturing their boundless, untamed energy, somewhat fails to match their boldness.
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ANTICIPATION.
An indie European film about sisterhood will always spike the interest of cinephiles who grew up as the bratty little sister. 4
ENJOYMENT.
Chaotic and wonderfully tense, perhaps brought back too many memories of trying to kill my big sister (for no good reason). 4
IN RETROSPECT.
A little forgettable and certainly loses itself in subplots, but still joyously chaotic. 3
Directed by
Mika Gustafson
Starring
Ida Engvoll, Bianca Delbravo
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