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At the top of my wish list for next week is a one-off screening of Michael Almereyda‘s Paradise Thursday night at Nightingale. Described by its creator as a video “work in progress” despite having played at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles last month, the film comprises a diary of cities of Almereyda’s rapturous acquaintance—approximately two dozen in 33 shots, including New York, Los Angeles, and post-Katrina New Orleans as well as overseas unfamiliars like Seoul and Esfahan. My favorites among Almereyda’s features—Another Girl, Another Planet and Nadja, though not so much the Ethan Hawke Hamlet—like to flirt with the elusive and uncanny, but this one evidently sends him over the edge of literal definition, finding “paradisiacal moments” in the transitory before they evanesce completely. Some Almereyda quotes to put you in a receptive mood, as they already have me—from a recent AFI interview:
I happen to think this life is the only paradise we’ve got. And if it isn’t, it’ll do for now.
