Margaret Atwood, in her bestselling novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, wrote, “Better never means better for everyone; it always means worse for some.” Behind every impossibly radical way of living—be it the creation of Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale or Aeon, a corporation in the new Netflix film, Paradise, which allows for ‘age-transplants’—there is a seed of purported revolution, aided with the proverbial good intentions that pave the way to hell. This is probably why the Boriz Kunz directorial is ironically titled so.
There is much political commentary surrounding ‘chrono transfers’ in the film.
On one hand, you have Aeon’s founder Sophie Thiessen, who comes up with the technology to cure her daughter, who is suffering from progeria, a disorder that causes children to age rapidly. Later on, however, she uses it to advocate a brand of meritocracy-driven eugenics. What if Mozart, who died at 35, got to live till 200? Wouldn’t humanity be all the richer for it? It sounds like a fair argument till the movie exposes the flip side. We see people forfeiting their life spans as collateral for loans and to escape incarceration. The protagonists, Max and Elena, are caught among them. Their happy marriage goes for a toss when the latter is forced to pawn 40 years off of her life under dire circumstances, and they find themselves on a hunt to reverse the situation.
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Paradise succeeds in making the viewers think about philosophical dilemmas. Can people absolve themselves of larger ethical consequences by citing free will? What even is the value of free will in a world where power dynamics are skewed to a painful extreme? There is, of course, the not-so-subtle message on how private corporations may go on to yield as much, if not more, power than the government.
The film is tense and brutal, offering few moments of respite and joy. For a film so committed to its stance against major corporations getting away with crimes, the opposing fringe organisation is laughably unidimensional. What is their story? What is their reason to fight against Aeon, apart from the rather ubiquitous ‘all humans are equal’ spirit? Devoid of these answers, the latter half of the film turns into a goose chase involving two nations and three parties.
It distracts viewers from the ever-pertinent questions. Although the film ends on a note consistent with its intent at large, it leaves you with several questions and no closure, something that could have been avoided, perhaps, in a longer format or/and stronger writing.
Paradise
Director: Boriz Kunz
Genre: Science fiction
Platform: Netflix
Language: German