Directed by: Ulrich Seidl.
Written by: Ulrich Seidl and Veronika Franz.
Starring: Maria Hofstätter (Anna Maria), Nabil Saleh (Nabil), Natalya Baranova (Natalya), Rene Rupnik (Herr Rupnik).
Like
an Austrian Todd Solondz, Ulrich Seidl makes films that are meant to make his
audience provoke a response for an audience, make them uncomfortable, and from
scene to scene question their assumptions that they have made about the movie
and its characters. His ironically titled “Paradise” trilogies don’t depict
Paradise of any sort – just like Solondz’s Happiness was filled with miserable
people. The first chapter in the trilogy was Paradise: Love, an a middle aged,
overweight Austrian woman on vacation in Kenya looking for love, and gradually
finds that the love she can find there is for sale – and isn’t love, but sex.
You couldn’t help but feel sorry for this lonely woman at times in Paradise:
Love, and you couldn’t help but be repulsed by some of the things she does as
well. Both she and the Kenyan men she meets are exploiting each other – but at
least the men had a better excuse. I left Paradise: Love not knowing how to
feel about it – and in the months since I have seen it, I still cannot make up
my mind on it. That’s one of the movie’s strengths. The second chapter in the
trilogy is Paradise: Faith – and while Seidl is going for something similar,
with a different main theme, the result isn’t nearly as fascinating.
Right
from the beginning, Seidl is provoking us. We meet Anna Maria (Maria
Hofstatter) as she goes about her morning prayers – and then lashes herself
while praying to one of the many crucifixes in her house – so we know what kind
of faith Seidl is referring to in the title. Anna Maria is a nurse, who goes on
vacation (just like the woman in Paradise: Love – who is her sister in what is
really the only connection between the two films – you don’t need to have seen
the first one to get the second). But she’s not really going anywhere on her
vacation – she’s staying at home. She is Catholic, and she and her prayer group
are determined to make the whole Austria Catholic as well – a mighty task, but
they have God on their side after all. Throughout the movie, we’ll see Anna
Maria go to multiple strangers’ houses to prayer with them – and the rather
large Virgin Mary statute she brings with her. Some strangers simply slam the
door in her face, some humor her, some argue with her, and some seem at least
somewhat interested. These scenes range from funny to sad to disturbing.
Anna
Maria arrives home one day to find Nabil (Nabil Saleh) in her house. He is an
Egyptian Muslim, and although they have a past together, it takes Seidl a while
to reveal that he is her husband who hasn’t been living at home in a while.
Nabil’s presence, and his mockery of her faith, makes it clear that this
conversion to this type of religion is a later in life decision for Anna Maria
– a born again Catholic if you will. Although Anna Maria allows Nabil to stay –
she refuses to share a bed with him either for sleeping or sex. The later in
particular infuriates Nabil, and the two begin a domestic Holy War.
Or
at least, I think Seidl wants the audience to see it as a Holy War, but this
never really works in the movie. The problem with Paradise: Faith is that it
seems to know little about faith itself – neither the Muslim or the Catholic
faiths are explored in any sort of detail in the movie, and in fact Nabil seems
to be almost secular. He doesn’t go around knocking crucifixes off the wall
because he really objects to her religion – but because she refuses to have sex
with him, so he wants revenge. The Catholic faith isn’t explored in much more
depth than the Muslim one in the movie – and Anna Maria strange relationship
with Jesus – which is sexual in disturbing ways – never really makes much sense
either. Seidl is obviously going for shock value in scenes like the opening and
closing of the film, which are flip sides of the same coin, or the scene where
Anna Maria brings a crucifix to bed. The problem is that there really isn’t
much in these scenes beyond the shock value.
More
effective than the domestic Holy War, and Anna Maria’s S&M relationship
with Jesus than are the home visit that she makes to non-believers looking to
convert them. These get increasingly disturbing and sad as the go along –
beginning with an argument with an older couple who think it’s hilarious that
she says they are “living in sin”, and going to a sad sack middle aged man who
still misses his dead mother (and is probably just happy someone is there to
talk to him) and ending with an extended sequence involving an drunken Russian
immigrant woman, who proves too much even more Anna Maria’s devotion. Even if
the scenes don’t make much logical sense (since when do Catholics knock on
people’s doors and try and convert them), thematically and dramatically, the
scenes work.
If
there is a reason to see Paradise: Faith, it’s because like Paradise: Love,
there is a wonderful performance at its core. Whatever problems I may have with
the movie, the performance by Maria Hofstätter is not one of them. She goes for
broke in this film, and delivers an excellent performance that helps to paper
over the film’s shortcomings.
Paradise:
Faith isn’t nearly as good as Paradise: Love. That was a fascinating, haunting
film – a moral puzzle that all this time later, I’m still trying to put
together. Paradise: Faith is more straight forward, less complex and less
interesting. I found myself thinking about Paradise: Love for weeks after I saw
the film – and now, just days after seeing Paradise: Faith, I find I haven’t
thought of it too much at all. It’s an interesting film, but when compared to
what came before, it’s a disappointment.
No comments:
Post a Comment