08/09/2023 - VENICE 2023: Swedish director Mika Gustafson’s sophomore feature celebrates sisterhood in all its shapes and sizes

Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad and Safira Mossberg in Paradise Is Burning

In a working-class neighbourhood somewhere in Sweden, three sisters might be having the time of their lives, if we were to judge by children's standards. Unsupervised, their mother absent, and taken care of by their eldest sister, Laura (Bianca Delbravo), who’s only 16, Mira, 12 (Dilvin Asaad), and seven-year-old Steffi (Safira Mossberg) have all the freedom in the world to play, but not without causing some mischief along the way. It’s their own queendom, but melancholy sets in quickly. A call from a social worker announces an upcoming visit, and Laura, the stand-in mother, decides to deal with it herself. So goes the main premise of Mika Gustafson’s new film Paradise Is Burning [+see also:
trailer
interview: Mika Gustafson
film profile], playing in this year’s Orizzonti strand at Venice.

The director’s feature debut, Silvana [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], was a music doc about famed Swedish artist Silvana Imam, but it already highlighted Gustafson’s penchant for complex female characters who have the final say in a world that pushes back. For Paradise Is Burning, she resorts to fiction, but her exploratory mode is more observational than constructed. For less than two hours, we get to dwell on the sisters’ daily life, where there’s never a dull moment. The trio of charming protagonists bounce off each other in endless banter and joyous disobedience: they are always a team, whether they are breaking into a house to use the pool or are causing distractions at the supermarket to shoplift some groceries. There is no context as to where their mother is, but the fact that they have to fend for themselves speaks volumes. One may think of this year’s Scrapper [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Charlotte Regan’s film about a young girl in very similar circumstances. It seems that the kids may be alright after all.

Skipping school, fights in the playground, curse words – all of the markers that Swedish society would easily brand as distasteful reign supreme in this family, but in the midst of this chaos, there is a lot of love and support. As an audience, we cannot help but be drawn into this little world of wonder. But again, melancholy is a sneaky thing, lurking at the end of a glowing Nordic summer. While Laura is admittedly trying to keep it all together in spite of her worst impulses – she is a teenager, after all – the harsh truth is that she is only a child. She rarely turns to adults, but when she does, she faces rejection, both from her neighbour Zara (Marta Oldenburg) and a very disinterested aunt. A chance encounter with a woman named Hannah (Ida Engvoll) signals something of a turning point for Laura, as she could possibly be a friend or at least a partner in crime.

In Hannah’s house, there are dummies and baby bottles, but no baby. It’s dead quiet, and there is no husband in sight, but Laura asks no questions; neither does Hannah. They are perfect for each other in this regard: both are supposed to be mothers in their own ways, but both are reluctant to be. It is no surprise that they form a special, if unarticulated, bond, breaking into people’s flats to hang out in their kitchens. No character background gives any clues as to why exactly these two women feel so comfortable in strangers’ houses, but escapism is in the air. Gustafson hints at it, but keeps it ambiguous enough to preserve the shared fun of discovery. One can guess how fluid their concepts of “home” are. The same feeling permeates all of the scenes where the younger sisters play: their world of games is also one of escapades, which further imbue these scenes with wonder and nostalgia for an abstract “elsewhere”, but one never too far away, or too unknown. In an ever-accelerating world, growing up can be a slower process than expected.

Paradise Is Burning was produced by Sweden’s HOBAB, in co-production with Copenhagen-based Toolbox Film, Finnish outfit Tuffi Films and Italy’s Intramovies, which also handles the international sales.