[critical] SNOW IN PARADISE

Monteur d’Anton Corbijn during his first two feature films (The American, Control) and the brilliant trilogy of Red Riding in particular, Andrew Hulme passes for the first time behind the camera and decided to adapt it to the screen this true story. One of a small gangster English that has spread little by little from the crime by becoming a muslim.

The coincidence place ideally SNOW IN PARADISE as a response to the tragic terrorist events that occurred in Paris recently, by showing us Islam is a pacifist, that is going to redirect Dave, our apprentice gangster, on the right path.

If the movie has obviously not been built around the idea of dissociating a good time for all the muslim terrorists claiming in the name of this religion, it appears important today to the eyes of those who fear the famous amalgam and necessary for those who feed it.

Because of this, this burning question will only be mentioned in passing in the film, acting as a nice reminder.

But the story of this young man lost who is offered redemption through a religion, is it not also a bit banal and judgemental ?

And on many other aspects, that is the whole problem of the movie, which never ceases to blow hot and cold.

Dave, played by the young Frederick Schmidt the false air of Tom Hardy, is of all plans. He had inherited a small role in the excellent Fists against the walls and this time, it vampirise the screen. So much the better, since his performance is pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, we can’t say as much for the secondary characters, including the lack of characterization tends to confound situations wanted yet dramatic. The immersion takes a hit, especially as the story has a lot of trouble to start.

Consider this : spent the first 40 minutes, we still don’t know where is the first act. When the movie does it really start ?

“Boredom is a leader in this polar lethargic and singular, who constantly blowing hot and cold.”

There is SNOW IN PARADISE, a concept quite curious that one might call “staging modes”.

Just as the story attempts to convey a message of peace (we are reminded that it is the literal translation of “Islam”), Andrew Hulme has had the ambition to do the same with respect to the visual choices.

Thus, it plays a lot with the out-of-field, there is this desire not to little or to show us and we shall carry out broad plans when the violence becomes inevitable, when running for example.

The viewer wife constantly the point of view of Dave, therefore it has no omniscience. And again, some drop, especially because of this choice, not helped by the slowness in general of the whole, which is likely to lead inexorably to boredom.

This was in addition to repetitive sequences already seen a lot in genre cinema, namely the drift of psychological character that starts with a session of sport in his room grubby, and then the traditional consumption of the drug, which leads to a sexual intercourse bad with his girlfriend, new drugs, and then the hero végète on his bed. As more and more people numerous enough, these scenes have the bad idea to stretch…

Not completely uninteresting, SNOW IN PARADISE proves to be too uneven to fully convince. Despite the obvious desire to tell a story that was visibly at heart, the director ends up by being lost and us with it.

Through the course of this young man, lost in an England bathed in the social misery, it is sometimes surprising to an ounce of humanity rewarding. However, the choice of the unusual narration, and mise en scene are at risk of tiring quickly.

Or when the form serves a background that would probably have earned another artistic treatment.