Written and directed by Mika Gustafson, co-written by Alexander Öhrstrand, three sisters aged 7 to 16, live alone after their mother vanishes for whole swathes of time. When the social services demand a family meeting, oldest sister Laura plans to find a stand in for their mother. Starring: Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad, Safira Mossberg, Ida Engvoll, Mitja Siren and Marta Oldenburg.
Going into Paradise is Burning, it’s hard to not draw a quick connection to Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper, young women trying to live independently, avoid social services and stay together. Whereas Regan takes a foray into comedy, Mika Gustafson and Alexander Öhrstrand capture something more dramatic and layered. There’s a lot of brokenness and naivety flowing through the writing, creating some unusual and interesting connections. However, the focus lies in their sisterhood, that combination of ride or die and wanting to kill each other. It’s combustive, realistic and relatable to anyone with a sibling.
Gustafson’s directorial style definitely reflects those qualities, it’s utterly modern, youthful and feminine. Again, in a realistic manner because many might confuse femininity with gracefulness or a rosy lens but here the style represents womanhood in a real way. There’s also something to it that throwbacks to the past, a certain bohemian edge that was beloved in the 1960s and 1970s. It creates that great balance between being dramatic yet free flowing, embracing the chaos but not getting lost in it.
A lot of what Paradise is Burning has to say, is done through the performances and not the dialogue or the plot. The crux of the story is not the dilemma these sisters face but just their personalities themselves. Personality is something Gustafson injects a lot of, especially with the help of editor Anders Skov and it’s excellently matched by the leading trio of Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad and Safira Mossberg. They each create very different young women, each with their own strengths and issues.
It’s a big, messy, tangled ball of emotions, being communicated through a lot of physicality, frustration and anger. They do a wonderful job of portraying how it’s hard enough to be a young woman, let alone in their complicated situation. Playing the oldest of the sisters, Bianca Delbravo does take the lead as Laura, she’s savvy, resourceful and resilient but she’s still plenty vulnerable, naïve and yearns for a genuine, reliable connection with an adult in her life. Delbravo gives an excellent performance and has a surprising and complex chemistry with Ida Engvoll as Hanna. It moves Paradise is Burning through a lot of mental health issues, without having to outwardly acknowledge them.
However, it can feel that perhaps too much goes unsaid, that while it’s embracing the chaos of young sisterhood and womanhood, a lot of issues are going unresolved. It’s like opening up a chapter into their lives which is certainly interesting to watch, there’s a lot of rawness and unfiltered energy but without a more satisfying story, it simply drifts off, leaving things in limbo. Paradise is Burning is excellently directed, filled with personality and fantastic performances, it simply needed to explore a little bit further to reach its potential.
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