Paradise: Love

Paradise: Love

Paradise: Love

Paradise: Love was one of the most unremittingly depressing and soulless movies I've ever seen. While it might have worked as a documentary, it didn't work at all as fiction. I knew the movie was in trouble when in the opening scene, the camera seemed to gawk and leer at a group of Down Syndrome individuals riding bumper cars. This set the tone for the movie; it seemed to operate from the premise the simply portraying misery and dehumanization is in itself art. Not so. There were hardly any real human interactions in the movie, and as a result nothing redemptive about it. Even the sex itself was presented oddly; we saw numerous awkward and unfulfilled moments, but we never saw Teresa enjoy her encounters for even a second. After all, something kept her going back. The movie was so heavy-handed, so focused on exploitation, it couldn't allow even a second of joy to break through. I thought that at the end, the director might offer some uplift by showing Teresa back in Austrian with a new appreciation for her humdrum job and her slacker daughter, but that was way too much to ask. At the movie's end we see her walking on the beach, lonely and morose. A good movie may leave you feeling melancholy, but it always leaves you feeling more human and enriched. This movie was the antithesis of that. As much as I didn't like this movie, I'm sure the Kenyan board of tourism liked it even less!

This is a very sad movie. It explores some of the worst sides of human nature, I should say. To begin with, I can sympathize with Theresa, because her longing for love and sex, although she has become too old and fat for Western European men - is after all a natural thing. I feel sorry for her, when the African men only try to suck her out of more and more money, in a completely shameless way. But then Theresa also changes into someone harder, who does not expect love anymore but just seeks sex on her own terms. She is getting ruthless, and in the end - and in the company of her women friends who are the same - she can even treat a very young man, almost a boy, as if he was some kind of animal... By then she has lost me, and I feel an equal disgust against the Western women and the African men, customers and sellers in the sex trade, alike. I have also lost all desire to visit Africa South of Sahara, ever... The photo is very bleak and dark, and it does not seem very professional. But maybe this is intentional - to make it look more like a documentary or a reality show? I think it would have been more entertaining with Hollywood standard on the photo and filming, though. This is not a movie that you should watch if you are already depressed and have doubts about the human race... And absolutely not in the company of children or teenagers, as there is a lot of nudity here and sex showed in an unpleasant way - the opposite of romantic. But if you want to learn something about what your sister, mother, colleague or friend might have been up to on her "cultural" tour of Gambia or Kenya... you might give it a go!

The first movie of the 'Paradise' trilogy. All the three stories happen in the same time in different locations with different themes. But the protagonists from all the three were a family like two sisters and a daughter. So this movie which unfolds the story of 'Love' of a woman who is mother to a 13 year old. And her journey afar seeking men who make love. Kinda never heard about men called 'sugar mamas' so for me this movie was totally afresh. It chronicles the story of a 50 year old Austrian women Teresa who travels to Kenya seeking sexual pleasure. As she arrived her destination to a seaside resort she begin to explore like what most of the European women come there to seek. She finds her man but as they all are prostitute do they find her an attractive as she's a fat woman from the north. She tumble into a confusion state but sooner she things she got her perfect one. Does it long lost or she slip it away as usual for her typical reasons is the remaining. The movie had a strong * scene all over but not sexual intercourse like reality. If there are no beautiful young women and men that mean it is not belong to an adult movie. Sex is still a sex with any age men and women so I consider it is an adult movie which suits only for selected audience to view. When it comes to the story it was completely different than most of the movie that belongs to male prostitution theme. Much appreciable for the director for his unique approach to tell on the social issues.

This is a super film in many respects. Beautifully filmed. Interesting issues. And sensitive approach. But some of the sex scenes were exploitative of the actors, particularly the first and last sex scene (the rest were fine and gave a real sense of what was going on). I thought that it was a terrible irony that the director was making a point about sexual exploitation, when he was in effect sexually exploiting these actors, very tawdry and morally questionable. Otherwise, I would have given the film an 8 or 9. And was tempted to give it a 1 because of this.

I watched this for a very particular reason: last year I began researching conversions to Islam among Westerners. I found that 75% are women between 15-24. That seemed a bit odd to me...then I read a French report on Islamic extremists--most were, surprisingly, women converts! Then I began thinking about cults...the Manson Family...mostly women...Branch Davidians....mostly women....and so on. Then there is the phenomenon of the kidnapped girls, some of whom had the freedom to run away but refused to do so (Elizabeth Smart, et al.). While watching "Beatles: Eight Days a Week," which is mainly about the concerts the Beatles gave, it struck me that virtually the entire audience was young girls, all hysterical. Why???? Then, when thinking one day about Obama's mother (married a Kenyan student when she was very young, then married an Indonesian), I stumbled across this sub-culture of women who search out exotic locales for sex tourism. It's not a new phenomenon, but I'm not sure when it began-- "Heading South," about female sex tourism is supposedly set in 1979. "Bezness as Usual" is set in Tunisia in present day--but it concerns what happened almost 30 years ago--so c. 1986 or so. "Paradise: Love" is present day, so 2012. I am curious when this phenomenon began--when women as well as men began taking sex holidays. Maybe the sexual revolution of the 1960s unleashed something??? What's up with all these women? If anyone has a clue, please answer in FAQ comments. As for "exploitation," it is not an easy issue. Clearly the power is in the hands of the European/American women. They have the money, they have passports to leave when they're ready, and they seem to be relatively safe. One movie said something like "Tourists don't die." The beach boys on the other hand know exactly what they're getting into. Yeah, you could say they "don't have a choice" but as Sartre said, "There is always a choice." And they do have power too--the women get emotionally attached to them; they never, ever get emotionally attached to the women--even if they marry them. They manipulate the women, as "Paradise: Love" shows so well. The hero of this particular movie is Joseph (or something like that) the bartender. At the end of the movie he says he "wants" to have sex with her but "is not used to" doing such things. In the end, his reluctance gets him kicked out of the room. But he is the moral force, such as it is, of the movie. If this is the face that the West presents in these countries, it's no wonder the West is hated and despised. But the women--in all these movies--don't give a second's thought to that. It's all about them personally, and the larger picture is not even on the horizon. This is a good movie in the sense that it at least tries to take a stab at explaining the women's motivations. A second movie, Dutch, 2016, is "Benzess as Usual," where the son of one of these vacation idylls returns to meet his father. In this case, it's Tunisia. But exactly the same thing is going on--older women using younger, poor men for sex. And, as hinted at in "Headed South" in this case the beach boy is taken to the Netherlands and then Switzerland (by different women!). He marries both, but of course it ends badly. A third movie in this genre is "Heading South." In this case, it's French and American women in Haiti. (But it happens throughout the Caribbean, esp. Jamaica). The location changes, the story is the same. There are also numerous youtube videos on this theme. And then of course there are books like "The White Masai" about a young (!) Swiss woman who marries a Masai--and not an educated, Westernized one, but a native from a village living in a mud hut. It's beyond bizarre. She is "shocked" when things don't work out. I am simply speechless.

Finally some meaningful film on the repertoire! I loved it although I found it a little bit slow, but I still gave it 7 out of 10. Life in reality is slow, so it is natural. So is sex. Natural! That is showing in this film. Everyone needs sex and love! So do fat Austrian women. In Austria they probably would not get any, so they have to travel to Kenya. Kenyan are so poor that it is a way to make some money. It is business! Sex tourism! There is so much of it today all over the world. Sad and funny and heartwarming at the same time. If you want a little bit break from Hollywood, please watch this.

An Austrian woman on holiday in Kenya, is convinced by a fellow country woman to seduce a local boys for the fun of it as they are tasty as an exotic fruit. The hesitant woman eventually gives in and she has a taste of young love. Unaware or perhaps out of naivety that for the local boys, older European women are a good way to supplement their income she spends a bit of time under the illusion that she is loved by an attractive young man. When reality hits, it hurts and this frustrated woman turns her quest from looking for a bit of fun to an odyssey of self-confirmation. Simple, effective and nicely made this is a beautifully visual thesis on holiday romance.

We enter here a paradisaical world with this woman, a middle-aged Austrian who's gone to Kenya on vacation. We enter as she does, strangers, fascinated. There is no transition to this new world, no waiting on airports, no planning for the journey, we are immediately swept as if by the urge to be there. Once there we see as she does, stylized images, arranged symmetries. In the hotel resort there are trivial games, senile safety, control: the Africans are confections to be toyed with and enjoyed, ranges for the eye to roam. The question that looms is is she there for the encounter and surprise or merely looking for images to bring home to a dull life? You'll see this early in the metaphor with the monkey that takes her bait but refuses to be photographed, eluding her. More importantly: are we here on cinematic vacation or to come to an understanding? Out in the streets there is a more palpable tension however; all about baring yourself to be seen and the quest for meaning. I like the subject, the lush Africa, the sexual frankness, the fact that sex and meaning are sublimated in a viewing space between people. So I believe this could have been tremendously powerful stuff in the right hands. Alas the filmmaker is Austrian and this means that we see in the same stark light they bring to everything they do: from logic to politics to music. What does this mean, a stark light ? It means every encounter has to be sooner rather than later exposed as meaningless, because the ultimate point here is some void at heart, the same that originally creates the journey there, which is also the filmmaker's. It means that he can't let go, and not allowing himself to yet know, coast on the tension of an encounter that may be false, that most probably is false, yet like movies and love work in life, that we can throw ourselves in it as if it is real and in doing so imbue it with truth, weave it from air. A Mood for Love with a question behind each glance. I'm dreaming of the film Cassavetes would do: all about building to this more or less certain horizon of betrayal with momentary truths, small moments like passing a joint in the dark, riding this tension, hiding the logical knowledge. So I lament this because his failure is the same as his heroine's failure to find fulfillment. He resorts to more obvious stuff, merely chronicling the lack: disillusionment, loneliness and how that gives rise to dehumanizing spectacle as in the scene where the woman is offered in her hotel room a witless African to tease and fondle. Ordinary. You can even see this reluctance in his camera when now and then he lets it wander: we don't deeply feel the textures, we are never truly enmeshed in the world. Again this is as much cinematic translation of the woman's pov as it is inescapable worldview for the filmmaker, the same boxed worldview that Herzog runs from by journeying to the edges to throw himself on the manifold strangeness of things, letting his eye roam, staging boats tugged over hills so it can become real.