"Paradise": love stronger than prison

From the outside, it looks like a prison. Joe, 17, ran away and on his way home is yelled at by a young woman, his manager (played by Eye Haïdara), without much breakage. The guards say "room" and not "cell". Not so bad? It is a closed centre for juvenile delinquents, or as one of its residents puts it, an IPPJ, Public Youth Protection Institute. A last, or first hope, to get out of it, an airlock between life before, outside, and real prison or reintegration, after a series of nonsense that led these teenagers here.

Purgatory of "Paradise", the first film of a young thirty-year-old, Zeno Graton, which catches you from the start. At this unprecedented crossroads between film of initiation, prison and love. Improbable, and impressive. Joe (Khalil Gharbia) stole scooters, cars, drove without a license. He doesn't want to go back to his mother. His request to the judge? Training, small housing, autonomy. He has been there for six months, and his case will be reviewed shortly. It is under tension, under all attentions.

There is a sweetness in "Paradise", which nevertheless leads to hell. So much the gear seems impossible to stop. "I'm not telling me to calm down, I'm dying," yells one teenager. Thunderstorms that streak a rather well regulated daily life. An oiled mechanism towards reintegration, under the control of a constructive, benevolent or even loving staff, but that any grain of sand, madness can return to dust.

Joe wants out but William has just come in. Love at first sight. "Paradise" films with modesty and evidence a homosexual love in a prison world. That's their bubble, their paradise. Two lovebirds in a cage. Two indomitable thoroughbreds, for better and also worse. An inseparable pair. The director tells a story as if it belonged only to him, with his fresh eyes. And that's already a lot.

Editor's note:

3.5/5

"Le Paradis ", by Zeno Graton, with Khalil Gharbia, Julien de Saint-Jean, Eye Haïdara... 1h23.