The quality of the filmmaking (with cinematography team Ed Lachman and Wolfgang Thaler again doing stellar work) will come as no surprise, but the sensitivity and empathy with which Seidl explores the pangs of first love might catch many viewers off guard.
While sociologically justifiable, the dispassionate nature of Seidl’s observation is deliberately alienating, and the material ultimately feels overstretched; originally conceived as one single portmanteau film, the Paradise trilogy doesn’t have enough meat on its bones to justify four hours of anyone’s life.
There is a new humanity to Seidl's work; it could be his best film so far.
Completing a trilogy begun with Love and continued in Faith, this is the gentlest and most amenable of Ulrich Seidl's dramas of female sexuality.
Tying up his trilogy in style, Seidl's film unsettles and provokes with wit and composure.
A languid slow-burner that builds into a bleak portrait of a troubled teen.
Seidl’s usual withering view of humanity has mellowed enough to suggest that the worst doesn’t always have to happen and that his heroine isn’t doomed to follow in her mother’s footsteps – which, in the bleak world of these films, counts as a minor triumph.
Funny, awful, compassionate and surprising.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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