Paradise: Love (Paradies: Liebe)

Year: 2012
Country: AUSTRIA, GERMANY, FRANCE
Run Time: 120 minutes

Teresa has left Austria to celebrate a fifty-something birthday at a resort in Kenya. It is, a friend assures her, a paradise for older women seeking love from the local and always available men. Hesitant at first, Teresa dips her toe into the erotic waters of the male sex trade where beautiful Kenyan boys sell “genuine” love as easily as they sell beads and carvings on the beach. As her pursuits become more enthusiastic, the line begins to blur between the exploiters and the exploited. With marvelously realistic performances and unabashed sexuality, PARADISE: LOVE captures moments of humor, eroticism, and painful awkwardness as Teresa goes through a succession of young lovers and a birthday orgy thrown by fellow female guests. The film sharply distinguishes between the luxury resort with the poverty around it, unblushingly exploring the contrast between Teresa’s awareness of this mercantile world and her hope that something real might exist in it after all. Though standing alone, this is a thematic companion to “Paradise: Faith” and “Paradise: Hope” and is a paradise of telling and memorable moments. (In German and Swahili with subtitles) – C.R.

• Tweet