PARADISE IS BURNING (PARADISET BRINNER) (2023)
Starring Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad, Safira Mossberg, Ida Engvoll, Marta Oldenburg, Mitja Siren and Alexander Ohrstrand.
Screenplay by Mika Gustafson and Alexander Ohrstrand.
Directed by Mika Gustafson.
Distributed by Room 8 Films. 108 minutes. Not Rated.
Swedish writer-director Mika Gustafson’s feature debut Paradise Is Burning doesn’t exactly have much of a plot, per se, although much of the action revolves around a very specific situation. However, the film has a loose and ambling randomness, much like the characters it is following around. Yet, at the same time, there is a real sense of gravity and tragedy lingering around the corners.
Feeling much like a documentary (Gustafson had previously worked on docs) the film (mostly) focuses on three sisters. The oldest is 16-year-old Laura (Bianca Delbravo) who has been watching over her, 12-year-old sister Mira (Dilvin Asaad) and seven-year-old Steffi (Safira Mossberg) while their mother is gone. Mom obviously takes off on a fairly regular basis for extended periods of time and so Laura is forced into the mother’s role.
They spend a lot of time with other girls from their neighborhood, breaking into homes to get food or use the pool or just for kicks. Laura is far from being a terrific role model and is quite confused about her own life, but she does love her sisters and does her best to get them from home to school, to cook for them, and shield them from harm.
Paradise is Burning takes a look at a few days in their lives, when Laura receives a call from Family Services that they need to do a wellness check on the girls and their mother the upcoming Monday. And while this eventuality does force a certain amount of focus on Laura – she has to either track down mom or find someone else to pretend to be the mother. And she does, on and off, throughout the film, but there is so much more going on here.
After all, lack of parental supervision can lead in many directions. Life can be hard, but it can also be freeing having no one ever telling you what to do. And these three sisters do not seem to be the only ones going through this, several other neighborhood girls seem to have nothing better to do than hang out and party. (There do not seem to be many boys in this town.)
Each of the sisters have a few plot threads, but the main ones show Laura getting into an odd friendship with an apparently emotionally bruised thirty-ish local housewife names Hanna (Ida Engvoll). Hanna catches Laura escaping from breaking into a neighbor’s house and becomes fascinated by her life. Laura agrees to show her what it is like to break into a home, but she never quite realizes that the older woman is not as involved in their relationship as Laura is.
Mira is growing up, dealing with her first period and is completely uninterested in school. However, she befriends a neighbor’s slightly sleazy older boyfriend and becomes obsessed with managing him as a contestant in a local karaoke contest.
The youngest, Steffi, in the meantime, is slowly but steadily growing angrier and angrier, both with the world in general and her oldest sister specifically. She spends much of her time hanging in an empty lot with a younger friend breaking most anything they can.
There are not pretty, sanitized answers in Paradise is Burning. We never find out what happens with the Family Services meeting. However, it shows us a fascinating, unvarnished view of family and aimlessness and it feels all the more real for its messiness.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: September 7, 2024.
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