Paradise Is Burning
Left to their own devices by their absent mother, Laura and her two sisters revel in the excitement of freedom, letting their days unfold without the constraints of adult supervision. However, when Laura receives a call that threatens to place them in foster care, she frantically searches for a substitute mother to avoid this fate.
Critics Sentiment
Laura forms a dangerous friendship with a new mother from the wealthier side of town
The narrative drifts into secondary and slightly mystifying supporting characters around Laura
The film swings from its peak emotional engagement during Laura's dangerous friendship with the wealthy woman (score 7.5 at 55 min) down to its weakest stretch as the narrative loses focus in secondary characters (score 4.5 at 65 min), a drop of 3.0 points.
Paradise Is Burning opens with a slow, disorienting establishment of the sisters' unsupervised world that divides viewers, before rising to its emotional peak through Bianca Delbravo's magnetic performance and Laura's charged friendship with the wealthy outsider. The film's middle and later sections are consistently criticised for narrative drift and underdeveloped secondary characters, preventing the strong performances and beautiful cinematography from coalescing into a fully satisfying whole.
Crew
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