Paradise Drifters

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Movie
Original title Paradise Drifters
Country of production Netherlands
original language Dutch , Spanish , French
Publishing year 2020
length 85 minutes
Rod
Director Mees Peijnenburg
script Mees Peijnenburg
production Pieter Kuijpers ,
Iris Otten ,
Sander van Meurs
music Juho Nurmela ,
Ella van der Woude
camera Jasper Wolf
cut Imre Reutelingsperger
occupation
Cast and staff of the film at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020

Paradise Drifters is a coming-of-age drama by Mees Peijnenburg , which premiered in February 2020 as part of the Berlin Film Festival and is due to hit Dutch cinemas on September 3, 2020. The film is about three young people who risk losing their footing in life without a family.

action

Chloe lives with her mother in the Netherlands, but leaves the apartment with only one bag. She wants to go to Barcelona. Lorenzo, in his early 20s, visits his brother Ivan in prison. He wants to smuggle drugs to Marseille one last time in order to ensure a carefree life for himself and his brother after his release. The refugee Yousef lives in a youth facility. After his birthday he wants to go back to his family. The supervisor gives him a flashlight as a goodbye. Chloe wants to hitchhike and meets Yousef in the washroom of a motorway service station. When they ask Lorenzo if she could take a lot with him, he explains that he doesn't take hitchhikers with him. But Chloe quickly understands the predicament he is in, as he doesn't want to be checked by the police under any circumstances. She confronts him directly with her suspicions and blackmails Lorenzo to take her away.

Once in Marseille, Lorenzo delivers the drugs, which was the reason for his trip, and also gives his two fellow travelers a little of the large amount of money he received as a courier. From now on they want to travel separately. Chloe stays in an expensive hotel. The next day, she was called to a police station because Yousef was found dead and Chloe had to identify the body because her phone number was the only one found on his cell phone. Yousef's last belongings are given to her, including the money.

After Lorenzo's brother was released from prison, the two meet in Marseille, but after spending the night together in a brothel, Lorenzo wakes up the next morning and finds that Ivan has disappeared with all the money and does not answer the phone. Lorenzo doesn't know what to do now, but then he runs into Chloe again. They go to Barcelona together. On the way, Lorenzo often has to stop because Chloe vomits because she is pregnant.

Once in Barcelona, ​​Chloe moves into a small apartment and lets Lorenzo spend the night there. Ivan still doesn't answer the phone. When he finally gets in contact with him again, Lorenzo learns that he has spent all the money and asks him for more. Chloe skeptically lets his drug addicted brother sleep in the apartment, but catches him inflagranti as he is about to steal from Lorenzo again. Lorenzo is deeply disappointed in him.

Chloe came to Barcelona because she contacted an ambivalent organization to sell her unborn child to. For this she should get 15,000. At a doctor's office, she sees her child for the first time on the ultrasound images and hears their heartbeat. Suddenly she starts to rethink. She wants to abort the child, but does not have enough money, which is why she and Lorenzo commit a robbery. Lorenzo also accompanies her to the termination of pregnancy in a run-down practice and listens to her screams of pain.

Chloe and Lorenzo drive on together. They throw away their old SIM cards and get new phone numbers. They start their new life screaming with all their might.

production

Directed by Mees Peijnenburg , who also wrote the script. It is Peijnenburg's feature film debut as a director.

Bilal Wahib plays the refugee Yousef, Tamar van Waning the pregnant Chloe and Jonas Smulders the young drug courier Lorenzo. His brother Ivan is played by Joren Seldeslachts . Camilla Siegertsz took on the role of Chloe's mother, Steef Cuijpers that of her stepfather. Micha Hulshof plays Yousef's supervisor Cor.

The film premiered on February 23, 2020 as part of the Berlin Film Festival and was shown here in the Generation 14plus section. Both Peijnenburg's graduation film at the Dutch Film Academy, Cowboys Janken Ook , and his film Un creux dans mon cœur have competed for the Transparent Bear in the Berlinale program in recent years. The film is due to be released in Dutch cinemas on September 3, 2020.

reception

Felix Geise from uncut.at writes that since the film plays with the extremely limited supply of information, there is plenty of room for your own interpretations and speculations. It tells of violent living conditions and fates without judgment. The photos in the outskirts of Marseille and later Barcelona showed the otherwise very touristic cities in a not so romantic, but all the more exciting light. According to Geise, the director Mees Peijnenburg succeeded in creating a film that goes to the core, which is not least due to the impressive performance of the young actors who embody the main characters Films as more multifaceted than initially assumed. There is a closeness between the protagonists, which gets by without any kitsch and which becomes the essence of the film. Even if things are no better than before, suffering shared is only half suffering. "

Web links

Commons : Paradise Drifters  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paradise Drifters. In: berlinale.de. Retrieved February 13, 2020.
  2. ↑ https://www.biosagenda.nl/film_paradise-drifters_33926.html
  3. ↑ Felix Geiser: Film review for Paradise Drifters: What if you have nothing more to lose? In: uncut.at, March 8, 2020.