“Underneath the bridge
The tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I’ve trapped
Have all become my pets…”

So sings Kurt Cobain on the final track of Nevermind, his brooding, melancholy lament to disconnection and separation titled Something in the Way. Fellow artist and Pacific Northwest icon, Gus Van Sant, picks up this grungy, introspective thread in his mesmerizing new film, Paranoid Park, with the bridge becoming a freeway overpass, the animals morphing into teenage skate punks, and the leak representing adulthood, death, and the ambiguity of human existence. You can practically smell the coffee and rain in both of these works, a specific Seattle/Portland-based sadness and beauty emanating off their gray exteriors like ocean spray from the Pacific (if you’ve ever had the pleasure of spending a rainy afternoon in Oregon or Washington, you know what I am talking about).

And, it is from this very precise sense of place and mood that Van Sant delivers his best film since My Own Private Idaho.

But, first off, what is Paranoid Park? Based on the young-adult novel by Blake Nelson, Paranoid Park is a dangerous skater playground full of asphalt ledges and ramps that scruffy haired boys flock to so they can soar through the air on their boards and test out their latest moves. Thematically, however, the Park’s meaning is much harder to quantify and pin down (and, thus, all the more interesting).

“I don’t think I’m ready for Paranoid Park,” Alex (newcomer Gabe Nevins) tells his older friend, Jared, as they skateboard through downtown Portland early in the film. “No one’s ever ready for Paranoid Park,” Jared answers.

This simple exchange is repeated several times throughout the film (as are numerous other lines and images), its significance growing and shifting like the constantly forming rain clouds hovering just overhead in the wet Oregon sky. Elliptical and haunting, Van Sant and his excellent co-cinematographers Christopher Doyle and Rain Kathy Li show us both grainy Super-8 images and majestic 35-milimeter shots of skaters suspended in mid-air again and again, as if these lost boys are trying to escape the very bounds of traditional society and fly away on their skateboards…to where?

Well, part of that answer can be found in Van Sant’s previous work: like Last Days, Elephant, and My Own Private Idaho, Paranoid Park is a moody exploration of modern youth culture and the conflicting aspects of uncertainty, violence, and gender confusion contained within. And, also similar to his earlier films, Park is a daring expression of style and aesthetics, fusing elegant slow-motion visuals with subjective lighting schemes and intricate sound design, ultimately creating a balanced work of art that both imparts meaning and looks, sounds, and "feels" amazing (Gus seems to get just the right mix here, enough plot so we are not deadened by the non-action of a Last Days or a Gerry, but enough of his trademark style and nuance, too, so we are not shoe-horned into a Hollywood plot-machine like his Good Will Hunting or Finding Forrester).

Speaking of plot, here it is in a nutshell: Alex goes to Paranoid Park, a man is killed on a railroad track nearby, the autopsy reveals that the man was hit on the head by a skateboard before he died, and Alex is called in for questioning.

“I’m writing this a little out of order,” Alex narrates. “Sorry. I didn’t do so well in creative writing.” Constantly doubling back on itself, Van Sant treats the narrative like a swirling jigsaw puzzle, deftly revealing information and then shifting to another time and place to show us more, but always from a different perspective, a different context (just like a teenager’s mind, especially one so wrought with anxiety and apathetic guilt).

The performances ring true throughout (much of the cast are non-actors found on My Space), but it is Nevin’s blank stare and awkward coming-of-age humanity that grabs you and won’t let go. Lost adrift a sea of strangers and man-made protocols, Alex is trying to understand something, to find something, to transcend to someplace different – adulthood? gay initiation? true intimacy? – but unlike his soaring flights of fancy on his skateboard, there is something in the way keeping him earthbound.

Paranoid Park, Van Sant seems to be saying, is the place one goes to get past this barrier. If you dare.

Go see it at Laemmle's Sunset 5: www.laemmle.com/viewtheatre.php?thid=2

by Matthew Sidney Long