Skater boys look like they know a secret. They claim stretches of the city without speaking. They hunt down new frontiers, pitting themselves against unclaimed and challenging terrain. While other teens are accused of apathy, skaters really care. About skating, but that’s still something.
Paranoid Park is based on a novel by Blake Nelson about a skater with a secret. Police are visiting Alex (Gabe Nevins) at school, asking about a gruesome event that took place on the railroads. They found his board. Unable to talk to anyone, Alex writes down his story, trying to make sense of the facts and his feelings, struggling to order and contain his recollections just as skaters repossess their environment, shaping and moulding it to fit their needs. And as that experience is revealed, Alex sinks further into the detachment of a desensitised teenager – not careless or uncaring, but in shock.
Gus Van Sant draws out this spartan narrative through the inexpressive grunts prised from a face that shows only resignation. He shows the teenage world as we remember it, with the muggy weight of lost emotions, and the poignancy of places and people doomed to pass.
This deliberate, typically oblique film is like the agonised silence of a nervous 16-year-old. Yet Van Sant shows a respect for their self-loathing and discomfort, and suggests that, as we grow old and comfortable, we become diluted, far removed from our concentrated and more truthful teenage selves.
