Paradeisa ★★½

If there is a slight spoiler hidden in the synopsis of Marleen Valien‘s first feature, it’s for a good reason. Reading the brief introduction to the story evokes the notion of already knowing where it’s going, or even more: knowing its twists and turns, the characters and the lessons they will learn in the end, as well as the gags to pass the time until they get there. A single-parent artist father can’t make ends meet with his paintings, so his precocious daughter comes up with a plan: fake his death to boost sales, since everyone knows that dead artists sell better. But things don’t quite work out as expected.

Luckily, the same goes for the tragicomic family tale that manages to find a fresh take on its predictable premise without changing its familiar dramatic beats. There are the inevitable jokes about fake ashes, an unofficial funeral, and ridiculous lies, but the overall tone is a tad darker, visually and psychologically. Edgar (Robert Finster) is a self-centred narcissist who thinks his artistic vision is more important than providing the bare necessities for his daughter Lou and her older brother Jonathan (Carlo Krammling), whom he starts to see as a potential adversary. Twelve-year-old Lou (Rada Rae) sacrifices her childhood to stick up for her father, who emotionally manipulates her into believing she has to care for him. 

Close to his 18th birthday, Jonathan can’t wait to leave and is only held back by worries for his little sister. Cinematographer Max Rauer captures this toxic home in desaturated, drab colours and pale natural lighting. It’s a deliberately depressing mood where laughter is literally gallows humour. Lou’s suggestion that her father fake his own death springs from an unconscious wish to see him gone – maybe not to his grave, but at least from their lives. Edgar’s rants about how hard he would have it in this world as a white, physically able, straight, middle-class man illustrate his bloated sense of self while hinting at his leaning towards right-wing populism and conspiracy theories. 

Comical situations counterbalance the underlying themes of parental neglect, poverty and premature responsibility, which are all too often treated as jokes or romanticised clichés in family films. Though it’s still obvious that neither the director nor her co-scriptwriter Max Rauer have experienced poverty, they at least try to convey its effects halfway believably. This striving for realism is most apparent in the ending the synopsis hints at to let the audience know that this isn’t the typical fairytale where things take a sudden turn for the better. Dead or alive, Edgar is still a lousy painter. Being without a legal guardian creates new problems for Lou that might be opportunities in disguise. 

Here the kid-friendly message isn’t the idealistic “families stick together” and “parents love their kids”: it’s that some parents don’t give a damn, and it’s time to get out of a home that has never really been one. This uncomfortable but important reality is told with competent performances, especially by Rae and Finster. At Locarno where Paradeisa (by the way, an outdated South German and Austrian word for tomato and its colour) had its world premiere, it won the jury prize in the section Kids Screenings. And since that jury was made up of kids, it gives hope that this imperfect but important work will find its viewers beyond the mainstream crowd.