Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, 2007)
Gus Van Sant’s stark coming-of-age tale Paranoid Park parallel’s J.D Salinger’s eternal novel ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ through the vise of a dark and modernised mirror, presenting an uninhibited and unembellished account of teenage-hood through its wide-eyed, pale faced protagonist Alex. Alex is an individual who exists in total isolation, his only tie to those around him being his physical body as his mind wanders unrestrained amid Van Sant’s dreamlike Super 8 skating sequences. Alex conveys the sense that something sinister may lie behind innocent eyelids, exhibiting a detachment from reality that appears almost frighteningly strong, and embodying a supposed innate quality of adolescents: that they must conceal or shroud themselves from the watching world. The ambiguous and seemingly strange resolution to the film furthermore suggests that audiences may choose to read Paranoid Park as a symbolic allegory rather than as a literal work.
Teenagers exist in mental isolation from their surroundings, Alex being particularly trapped by his insecurities, fears and an almost overwhelming sense of guilt. This follows the actions taken in self-defence by Alex and an experienced train-jumper that resulted in the accidental death of a rail yard security guard and launching Alex’s developing psyche into turmoil. Succeeding this incident, which is the only physical conflict in the film – Alex begins to drift away from those around him and withdraw into his Super 8 dream world. His unwillingness to confess to what he has done shows his reluctance to be judged by mainstream society in a characteristic reminiscent of Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, whose sojourn through New York represents a winding path to freeing himself from his neuroses. The pair are similar as they neither know how to inform society of their problems, nor know how to deal with them individually. Alex’s self-imposed isolation is shown most notably through Alex’s...