The third entry in Seidl’s trilogy may be the least provocative but it is surprisingly one of his more embracing films as a teenage girl becomes infatuated with a much older doctor at her dieting camp.
Review #2,871
Dir. Ulrich Seidl
2013 | Austria, Germany | Drama | 92 min | 1.85:1 | German & English
NC16 (passed clean) for some coarse language and sexual references
Cast: Melanie Lenz, Joseph Lorenz, Verena Lehbauer
Plot: Her mother in Kenya, 13-year-old Melanie spends her summer vacation at a strict diet camp set in the Austrian countryside. Between workouts and nutrition classes, pillow fights and first cigarettes, she falls in love with a doctor 40 years her senior.
Awards: Nom. for Golden Bear (Berlinale)
International Sales: Coproduction Office
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Slightly Mature – Diet Camp; Searching for Self; Falling in Love
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: General Arthouse
Viewed: MUBI
Spoilers: No
The final entry of the ‘Paradise’ trilogy from Ulrich Seidl may be the least provocative but it is surprisingly one of his more embracing films.
Considering that he is best known for depressing the hell out of his audiences by exploring the bleakest and darkest of human nature, Paradise: Hope, as the title suggests, is more like lapping up a hot bowl of hearty soup rather than spending a cold night in the rain.
The young teens that populate the film, however, need to watch their diet, as they have been sent to a camp that will hopefully help them shed a good number of kilos.
As these kids engage in ‘teen talk’ i.e. speaking blushingly about their real or imagined romantic, even sexual, exploits, one of them, Melanie, begins to crush on the camp’s medical doctor, who’s at least four times her age.
“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your fat.”
While Seidl does allude to the doctor being mildly paedophilic, Hope rarely goes into that disturbing territory. But like most of his films, it’s still uncomfortable to watch at times, though he also subverts our expectations in ways that feel liberating, a rare moment of auteurist grace afforded to us.
Shot in his identifiable style of static long takes, Hope eschews the cultural vibrance of Love (2012) and the utter solemnity of Faith (2013) for a more plainly ‘forward-looking’ film.
The teens still have a lifetime of experiences to savour, and Melanie with her bouts of infatuation, will hopefully learn to seek the love she deserves and avoid the ‘fates’ of the older female protagonists in the first two pictures, rounding up Seidl’s trilogy with a tinge of assurance.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 