City of Men

reviewed by Anu Valia

Note to viewer: Do not be confused. Although City of Men is shot in the same style, within the same favelas, have the same theme, and even the same first two words as its predecessor, it is NOT City of God. Nor is it a sequel to the critically acclaimed 2002 hit. It actually has nothing to do with City of God. So try to ignore the nagging urge to lean over to your friend in the first five minutes and whisper, “This isn’t as good”. I lasted twenty.

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Paranoid Park

reviewed by Sam Osborn

The tangle of story that’s unraveled in Paranoid Park is as wandering, lush, and explicit as any teenaged diary entry. Which is just as well, since the film is a recollection of a sixteen year-old’s painful memory of murder as transcribed in his confessional letter to a friend.

As Alex–the film’s narrator and lead character–warns us at the beginning, what we are about to see is not in order. He didn’t do so well in Creative Writing class. But sitting at his bedroom desk or at the isolated bench near a Portland lake, Alex will recount his story to us in its entirety. Scenes will be repeated, dialogue crossed and criss-crossed, stories changed, and revelations put on hold. This is the way Paranoid Park unfolds. It is evasive and uncompromising, expansive and tangential. It is teenaged. But only in this way is it truthful.

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