Our Paradise (2011) User Reviews

Lopsided plot, brave and strong performances

[BeneCumb · 7/10 · 7 May 2015]

Even in a relatively free country, approaching prostitution and hedonism within sexual minorities is a challenge, how to remain below porn and above hypocrisy. To a large extent, Notre paradis has managed it under depiction, but at the expense of smooth and well-grounded plot. The viewers get no explanations to several moments happened in the past, and the inclusion of Anna's family splits the script in two in an awkward manner, paving the way for trivial, yet expected ending. The performances, however, are memorable and vigorous, creating a kind of uneasiness and letting you ponder on and over "indecent" matters...

One thing is clear: one must be an open-minded person to watch this film. The visual can be pretty, but the background and apprehensions never are.

Very sexy exploration of intergenerational gay male lust/love and violence

[mattfg · 7/10 · 27 June 2012]

I first saw this film at Inside Out in Toronto. It was amazingly sexy, if not often nasty. I enjoyed the frequent nudity by young, angelic Dimitri Durdaine throughout the film (to date, his only credit here on IMDb.) The story was shocking. I wasn't quite sure what motivated Vassili, the slightly older male prostitute killer to kill some of his clients, besides perhaps an unbelievably short temper after receiving mild insults from clients unhappy with his age. If there were other reasons motivating him to kill, the script never mentioned them.

The film is polished and beautiful to watch. At its core, it seems to be a sexy exploration of intergenerational relationships between gay men and the violent consequences of exploitation. The affair between Vassili and Angelo is one such relationship - a 33 year old hustler and a 19 year old hustler. You combine that with the older male johns going after the young hustlers, not to mention the older former john of Vassili named Victor and his much younger/30-something live-in lover, and the intergenerational theme becomes obvious. Vassili's relationship with young Angelo (Durdaine) is the only tender and loving coupling on display. Vassili's violence is perhaps the symbolic end result of all this exploitation and fleeting lust. How else can an ageing hustler react to all this crap except to lash out with violence against those who no longer want him the way they used to? If you watch this simply as a lovely exploration of youthful beauty (and there is a lot of it on display) and the violent consequences of exploitation, you will enjoy it.

Again, Durdaine is stunning in this, no more than 19 or 20, the perfect twink, and he spends most of the movie naked, including a strangely erotic scene in which a kind and older (yet again) gay male doctor shoves a camera tube up Durdaine's ass during a health examination in order to probe the young lad's inner rectum, ostensibly to search for damage from a possible rape. Instead, he finds his insides as 'smooth as silk' to look at. Not only do we get to probe every inch of Durdaine's exterior, we also get a peek inside him as well. Thankfully, Stephane Rideau, still cute as hell, also shows everything off, but far less than Durdaine.

In truth, the movie spends as much time exploiting its subjects as it does lamenting that exploitation and the consequences of it (as evidenced through the metaphor of violence.) In that sense, the film doesn't judge the old for lusting after the young; in fact, it revels in it. All in all, this is one sexy, dirty little adventure with A-quality male nudity on display throughout, as well as a titillating story about the consequences of exploitation.

5 out of 10 for the story, but 10 out of 10 for the eye candy.

Find a Motive

[RNQ · 5/10 · 6 November 2011]

A kind of soap or soap-and-splash opera, with well played moments (like at the beginning Jean-Christophe Bouvet flamboyantly enjoying his vinyl record). Maybe engaged by moments of soft porn, the movie doesn't step back to consider its characters, let alone have them think themselves about what they are doing. Since it involves murder, there's a problem. The title may want to suggest that the central characters are Rimbaud and Verlaine, but the artificial paradise here is a pill at bedtime. The younger, Angelo, is there to be dressed or undressed, and gives no indication he knows or doesn't care what his partner is up to. Stéphane Rideau (the elder Vassili), with a hint of gut, can't be an éphèbe anymore, but he seems to know his business as a prostitute and what roles he can now play, so it is very hard to know why he isn't able to deal with older clients. The child, young Vassili (a genetic conundrum the name), does have a better sense of the plights he is in than anyone else.

Surprising love story, completely free of stereotypes

[jm10701 · 9 August 2012]

I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I expected to based on other online reviews. There is a good bit of nudity, but not a lot more of Dimitri Durdaine than anybody else, and (in contrast to at least two others, including Stéphane Rideau) none of him that would qualify as "full frontal" - "full side" is more like it, and even those rarely show much except skin. Some other reviews give the impression that he almost never wears clothes and that the camera examines every square inch of his body, neither of which is true at all.

What there IS more of in this movie than most is naked middle-aged and older men, which may bother some people but delights me. Except for Durdaine, all of the naked men in this movie have pot bellies, including Rideau (who's getting comfortably close to middle age himself), which is wonderfully refreshing in an age when only bronzed and hairless gym bodies under 30 ever appear in American gay movies (Can we say BOR-ing?).

Now that nudity's out of the way... There's something I like a lot about Gaël Morel's movies, but I'm not sure what it is. There's something very natural or unpretentious about them, something familiar and almost comforting, regardless of the subject matter. I feel like I'm among friends when I watch his movies. They FEEL good in some mysterious way comparable movies by other directors don't. He has an eye and a style and a language that are quite distinctive but not easy to define; whatever it is, I like it.

Don't let the crime element fool you: Our Paradise is above all else a love story. Vassili (Rideau), a rough, surly, aging hustler who is already in the habit of killing johns who offend him (and many do, since he's getting old and out of shape), finds a kid (Durdaine) beaten unconscious in a cruising park in Paris, takes him home and cares for him. Because the kid looks like an angel and has an angel tattoo in the lower right corner of his abdomen, and since he won't tell his name, Vassili tries "Angel" in various languages; the kid likes Angelo best, so that's who he is from then on. And from then on he is devoted to Vassili. Nothing that happens (and a lot does) shakes his devotion, and that devotion is the heart of this movie.

Angelo is not stupid or a masochist; he doesn't relate to Vassili as slave to master, cub to bear, boy to daddy, or any of the other gay May-December stereotypes. He simply loves Vassili. When Vassili sees that Angelo really does love him and has no desire to find somebody his own age, he relaxes and begins to trust the relationship too. It's lovely. All of their interactions, including several beautiful sex scenes, reinforce the growing strength of their relationship. None of the sex is gratuitous (whatever that means) or forced.

The backdrop for this sweet and tender romance, of course, are Vassili's increasingly rough tricks (since he's no longer young and hot, he has to do kinkier stuff to stay in business), which are depicted in pretty graphic detail, and his habit of killing johns who make wisecracks about his age. Angelo tries to get him to stop the killing, but it becomes obvious he won't, so rather than leave Vassili Angelo stays with him and occasionally helps.

It's really not much different from Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or any of countless other mainstream movies about criminal couples... EXCEPT: this is France, so even the murders are civilized, and (Thank God!) guns never play any part in the movie. (What a relief not once to hear the sound of a gun being fired!) There are no chases, no near escapes, no explosions, none of the noisy, overwrought melodrama that stuffs Hollywood crime movies like fat in a goose's liver. This is a quiet movie, a civilized movie, an intelligent movie. Every murder makes sense because we see them from Vassili's point of view. From the outside he may look like a psychopath, but we see the human being more than the crime; we see a man who is as gentle as a lamb with the (surprisingly many) people he loves and who wipes out the ones who make him unhappy. He's just doing what most of us would LIKE to do.

Even toward the end, when his motives for killing expand, there remains something about everything he does that just feels RIGHT for that character. He does it because he has to. He does it because the ones he kills need to be killed. He has his own moral code, and within that code everything he does is perfectly consistent.

I will emphasize again that Our Paradise is above all a love story, a sweet and surprising love story between a very young man and another nearly twice his age. This movie is about as unconventional as a movie can be - it follows no stereotypes of any genre, and yet it's somehow even more comfortable and familiar than stereotypes are; it's like a gift from an old friend. I don't know of anybody but Morel who can pull off a feat like this with what seems like no effort at all.

Unhappy Ending

[samtrak1204 · 7/10 · 19 November 2013]

OK, a gay-entered crime story involving aging prostitute and gorgeous young hustler is refreshingly different BUT you gotta hate this psychotic serial killer and his beautiful boyfriend despite efforts to make this tragedy a storybook love story. I wanted to see these guys get what was coming to them in the worst damn way, but the ending is both confusing and disappointing. Did the cute couple kill the young boy's mother or were those sounds of passion the boy heard? It seems no one lived happily ever after in PARADISE.

The hustling, prostitution, and violence in this movie pretty much accurately reflects the real deal in the male sex trade all over the world. The acting is good but the story does not reveal what motivates the killer to kill without hesitation or guilt. Was he raped or abused as a child? The story lacks depth to help us understand what's going on with this lunatic.

The editing is also jarring. When the action jumps to the French woman and her kid I wasn't sure if this was the same movie or some faulty videotaping. The abrupt ending makes the movie seem incomplete.

mixed reviews for this Morel project

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 6 June 2016]

SPOILERS Pretty violent beginning. Aging male prostitute Vassili (Stephane Rideau) commits a murder, then goes back out on the street, where he meets the much-younger Angelo. Dimitri Durdaine is "Angelo', who has just been beaten up and left in the bushes. Vassili brings Angelo home and looks after him, but then the story gets very dark. Vassili has anger issues, and it always leads to violence. The apartment is dark. The night is dark. But they both can't decide what they really want. Other people (guys and girls) come and go, and they talk about breaking up but they don't. They stick together; it gets even more violent. I get it that the business of prostitution probably DOES come with a certain amount of violence and danger, but this really was more violence than I needed to see. Right at the halfway mark, we are introduced to a mom and little boy, and the story kind of takes a left turn. The girl seems to be Vassili's old friend? wife? I liked the meandering storyline, but this would have been so much better without all the violence. One complaint I have was the translation for the French language. they left many details un-translated. unless you know some francais, you will miss a few things here and there. Written and directed by Gael Morel. I have seen and loved some of his earlier films. Elements of the film were great, but there's just WAY too much violence in this one for me. Beautiful scenes of France, both in the city and in the countryside.

For Love and Personal Pleasure

[Silitonga · 7/10 · 19 November 2013]

Still, is rare to find a good gay theme film with crime and thriller taste, well I think "Our Paradise" nailed it. Interesting romance, stabbing scene, sex, and emotion mixed well. The only lack was the ending. A little bit to illogical. There are dream come true but other doesn't. This film none of that.

The part still bothering me that Vassili did every psychopathic symptoms for love or personal pleasure. Vassili (played by Stéphane Rideau) is an mature gay hustler with killing instinct, triggered if he get mad or insulted. But, look like everything change when found young hustler almost beaten to dead Angelo. He took care of him and eventually they felt in love. Another killed by Vassili intended to secure they're needed fulfill and paradise came true. The last killing was mostly intended the lust for money.

My focus still on Vassili psychopathic behavior. I don't really know it was personal issue or love. But, love really expensive and can't be bought by money, but is worth it when they end up in jail? If it is, I don't see any paradise.

Weak screenplay, a misdirected Thelma & Louise remake

[joaosampaio-821-276676 · 3/10 · 2 October 2011]

Even if two hours of looking at Stéphane Rideau stark naked might be a pleasant prospect, this film has very little else to offer. The ageing prostitute Vassilli (Rideau) quickly and surprisingly meets the younger second half of this murderous couple (Durdaine/Angelo) in the cruising grounds of Bois de Boulogne, Paris. The film follows their sex encounters with clients that they kill afterwards for a few euros. After a few sex scenes (whose value added to the movie is a mystery), they decide to run from Paris. They kill another client, a few more sex scenes, and they're caught, and the film finishes. The whole film feels hasty, pointless, more of an erotic fantasy than a real story. It's a pity, from a director that actually made some very consistent films.

Notre Paradis/Our Paradise

[lavendertraveler · 10/10 · 15 April 2019]

Wow, Our Paradise! This movie blew me away from the first frame. One of the best gay movies I've ever seen, its strengths include its indisputable realism. The trolls, the johns, the older men are cast and played to perfection. You forget you're seeing actors who may or may not be gay. As a gay man you might be afraid you are seeing embarrassing bits and pieces of your own life exposed on that screen.

Prepare to be shocked. I've never seen such negative gay themes presented so convincingly. Sort of like a gay version of Natural Born Killers on steroids. Death, dismemberment and destruction as entertainment. Yet you can't take your eyes off the handsome but immoral and psychopathic main characters, the street-trash couple (Stephane Rideau as Vassili, and Dimitri Durdaine as Angelo) who wreak havoc on anyone in their destructive path. Their love is so real, so palpable, that you yearn to see them survive the bloody nightmare, le merde, that is their lives.

I only wish I spoke French, the language of this movie. There are English-language subtitles, but however good the captions are, there is just no way to capture every nuance spoken in such a sophisticated language as French. It's the language that gave us such elegant terms as soixante-neuf, menage-a-trois, frottage, mon choi, voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir?, and so many more.

Our Paradise is magnificently filmed on location in Paris and elsewhere across France. You feel as if you were standing in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. I normally don't watch films in a foreign language, but the title fooled me into thinking it was in English (original title: Notre Paradis). One glimpse of the mesmerizing story and I was hooked regardless of language. Available on Netflix.

"LGBT Bonny & Clyde"

[trmac-29234 · 6/10 · 16 November 2023]

This film made me feel a weird combination of emotions. "Wild Reeds" and "Come Undone" converted me into a Stéphane Rideau fan (I mean he was very attractive when he was younger), so I enjoyed seeing him in another movie. I also enjoyed Stéphane and Dimitri Durdaine together and I was kinda rooting for them as a couple (minus the crimes). However, I could've done without all the murder. One was bad enough, but it got a bit out of hand by the end... And then the presence of a young child in the background (and eventually foreground) of all the drama made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I didn't like it. Poor tiny human, he's probably scarred for life now. Also, shame on Victor's kept boy, Kamel, for being so nasty in front of and towards an innocent kid. I didn't want him to get killed, but I also didn't like the guy at all..

Should have been better

[ekeby · 5/10 · 5 April 2015]

I had high hopes for this movie, especially when, surprisingly, early in the film we see Stéphane Rideau as a somewhat slovenly, out-of-shape hustler. His benign and enigmatic smile is perfect for this role.

This is more complicated than a love story, and much more complicated, emotionally and psychologically, than a mere thriller. It's an ambitious story that doesn't quite make the grade. It's impossible to go much further without spoilers, and I do believe this is a movie that doesn't deserve spoilers. Other reviewers' citations about who is nude when and where and how and which sex acts are performed aren't fair either. This movie is better than that, or at least it aspires to be.

The photography and editing is clinical and detached and very much at odds with a sentimental and somewhat hokey soundtrack. The music used in one violent scene was so overly-melodramatic I found myself wondering if it was a reference to some old movie. It might have been, but I really think it was just bad stock music, and it seemed like a misstep for such an accomplished director.

There are other missteps as well, but the movie is eminently watchable, especially for gay men. It is not Gael Morel's best work by far, but if you like this and haven't seen his other movies, you will want to.

A Twisted P.O.V.

[jonmartin-71283 · 8/10 · 29 December 2016]

It's such a great love story it brings together the pain of how homosexuals have to live but yet you can't feel sorry for they intentionally Go out of their way to hurt people just to survive but they take it to a little bit of an extreme it kind of shows you how during the whole movie it's almost as if you don't feel bad for what they're doing because they make you think it's what they have to do to survive but if we were to see this from a different point of view we would see that what they're doing is wrong and in a criminal act the fact that they're in love kind of makes you feel like what they're doing isn't so bad because they're doing it for love but that is wrong they are killing ceiling just to find happiness little did they know they could find happiness trust within each other and they have but they took what they had for granted and wanted more this is definitely a highly recommended movie I've loved it!

Fascinating, but cynical and in the end unsatisfying movie.

[johannes2000-1 · 6/10 · 10 May 2022]

This is not an easy movie to watch, because of the extremely cynical and negative story. An aging (30 something) hustler hooks up with a mysterious angelic newbie, they develop a love-affair but also continue having payed sex with older men, in the process robbing and even murdering them. Gaël Morel (director and writer) hardly provides any backgrounds, so it's hard to understand their drives and motives (if any). Vassili seems mainly to act on uncontrollable impulses and Angelo, after some initial hesitating, just goes along with it. Sure, we see tenderness between the two, and they also have a warm relation with Vassili's best friend Anna and her little son, but for the rest we get to see two opportunistic, relentless and very unsympathetic persons, which makes it very hard to relate to them.

When in the end justice at last is served, this feels right, but the movie ends so abruptly right there and then, that you are still left unsatisfied: what will happen to them? Is there any remorse? Somehow I missed in this movie urgency, it didn't seem to go anywhere at all, in fact in the end we are left with the same questions as at the start, like: who are these two, why do they do these horrible things?!?

Vassili is played by Stephane Rideau. I saw him recently in "Wild Reeds" ("Les Roseau sauvages") by director Téchiné (in that movie a young Gaël Morel by the way played the leading role), Rideau was only 18 years old back then, and stunningly handsome like a young Alain Delon. But now, at age 35, he looked old, puffy and worn-out. It totally fitted his character, as well as this movie's premise of old versus young, but still I was a bit taken aback by this change. On the other hand: kudos for his courage to not hide anything, but on the contrary, making it instrumental to the movie! Young Dimitri Durdaine is not just cute, but holds himself pretty well and is convincing enough as the somewhat intangible and mysterious love-object. There's a fair amount of sex and nudity, not unusual in Morel's films, and fitting the subject.

Slasher Gay Dystopic Movie full of stereotypes AVOID EVITEZ!

[peru1-595-630106 · 1/10 · 13 February 2017]

The movie is a downer...the first scene with the older man doing the exaggerated stereotypical movements of a gay fluttering his hands and so forth (what straight audiences from the 50s think gay men do with their hands etc...) disabused me of much hope for an enjoyable experience in watching the movie. Then when Rideau strangles him I thought oh no this is another depressing movie about gays.

Rideau at 35 is a looker named Vasselli (the only reason I continued to watch this thing)--he is a hustler hooker and hooks up with an anorexic 25? year old Durdaine (Angelo) and they proceed to travel around beating up and killing mostly pot bellied naked some what kinky middle/older aged men. These men usually hire them for 3 ways (one of them put a gas mask on Rideau while having Durdaine use a dildo on him). This last unfortunate gets his head smashed with a rock after putting a live rat on a naked Durdaine's buttocks. Rideau as Vasselli does all the killing Durdaine as Angelo his anorexic side kick merely looks on admonishing not to do it again. About this time it occurred to me that Vasselli's name might be a play on Vaseline--surely not! I also kept thinking where are the flics (cops)? Angelo steals money out of a (presumably camera equipped) ATM..they are spotted in a gay bar.

Then we cut to a seamy heterosexual part of the movie. For the vast majority of gay men it is a complete downer to have the gay "heros" be bisexual. But by this time after a couple smashed skulls and strangled clients I cared nothing for the main characters in this film. This new sex angle female character is strange looking and works in a bar doing a magicians act she has a biracial 10 year old boy. Here the story explores the smothering mother angle as real cause of gay life (so insulting to gays). The boys name is Vasselli so we have to assume this is a quasi flashback telling us what warped Rideau as a child---things like having his mother give him too affectionate baths and so forth. Another typical negative stereotype.

The movie ends when the little boy watches his mother having Rideau and Durdaine plug her from both sides at the same time with lots of moans--(there is a soft porn side to this film lots of male nudity and sex scenes.) The kid saw Rideau kill the 2 men in the house they are staying in and he thinks they are killing his mother. He runs outside and tells a passing motorist about it leading to the gendarmes putting these serial killers out of business.

I was going to give the thing a 3 then thought of the bisexual sandwich scene and gave it a 2. Then I thought of the walk away message of gays as serial killers all caused by a smothering mother and gave it a 1.

Again there is nothing redeeming about the movie if you are gay it is particularly distasteful. Avoid Evitez.

DO NOT RECOMMEND

what price would we pay to live our dream?

[Gordon-11 · 29 November 2012]

This film is about a middle aged male prostitute befriending a young rival by chance. They become romantic and business partners, with unexpected results.

"Notre Paradis" is am unexpectedly dark film. The film synopsis doesn't tell you what exactly happens in the plot, so i was surprised to see the recurrent dark incidents. Vassili is egging and getting less desirable in the superficial world. Angelo is young and handsome, but we know nothing about his past, which is likely a scarred one. They both need each other to survive. They look for their paradise, no matter what the cost is. The ending is a somewhat Hollywood ending, but i find it not as satisfying as it takes away the dark edge of the plot. It is still a thought provoking film. What price would we pay to live our dream?

Classic Hitchcock

[donwc1996 · 10/10 · 24 September 2014]

This film is Hitchcock from beginning to end but with a French twist to give it an extra bit of fizz. The ending, however, was a misfire and since I am a writer myself I wrote an alternative ending which works for me and I think would work for the film. My ending is about love - the four men involved fall for each other and live happily ever after. The real ending is as Hollywood as Hollywood can get and for a French film that is a bit odd. Still, the more I think about the film the more I am really taken by how strong the characters are and how difficult their circumstances. Let's face it, we all see rough times, even dark times, and the two leads in this film are thrown into some pretty choppy seas.

addicting movie

[drazenko2312 · 10/10 · 4 October 2021]

This is such a cool movie. I re watched it many times.

a story

[Kirpianuscus · 31 August 2021]

A simple recipe , easy to shock,being , in essence, a beautiful, delicate love story. A cold, precise, realistic, maybe, portrait of gay circle life. The only problem - the murders, except, off course, the last.. Dimitri Dourdaine has physical traits for be a sort of Antinous or Tadzio but, in same measure, it explores the role in fair manner. The suggestion of Hadrian Antinous couple sounds nice and works decent. At the end , maybe, the most significant scenes are the first, with admirable Jean Chrisophe Bouvet remembering his youth as beginning of circle. Surprising, more than seductive film, for suggestions, aspects of every day life explored in wise manner, the end and the gentle manner to define the characters. It is one of films who propose , at the final, more a ball of states than a story in proper sense. And that is its precious virtue. To discover loneliness, love, frustrations expressions, soft use of nudity and sex scenes, loyalty in high measure, lonely motherhood and murder as way of justice in sort of Raskolnikoff perspective. A good film for its messages first.