Paradise: Love

The trailer for “Paradise: Love” gives the impression that this film is a comedy.  Yes, there is humor, something played up in the movie’s trailer.  Director Ulrich Seidl, who co-wrote the screenplay with Veronika Franz, favors deadpan humor using long takes, a technique that I enjoy.

The ancient Greeks gave us a short menu when it came to drama: comedy or tragedy.  The strict definition of a comedy is that the main character has failure, then success and learns something along the way.  In a tragedy the main character has success, then failure and learns nothing.

How then to categorize this tale of Teresa (Margarete Tiesel) a middle aged, over weight Austrian woman who leads a less than exciting life running a bumper car concession and dealing with an unresponsive teenaged daughter?  Teresa takes a vacation at a resort in Kenya where other women of her ilk curry sexual favors from fit Kenyan males who work at or near the resort.