PARADISE IS BURNING Review: Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves

Three young sisters -- Laura (Bianca Delbravo), Mira (Dilvin Asaad) and Steffi (Safira Mossberg), aged sixteen, twelve and seven -- are left to their own devices by the ever-absent mother in a small Swedish town.

Their household is chaotic, mischievous and slightly unsanitary, but pretty happy. As the oldest, Laura assumes the role of a “matriarch” and takes care of her sisters; she is also the one most prone to melancholy and uncertainty about what’s to come.

On the edge of childhood and adult life, towards which she was already pushed way too early, she feels a bit withdrawn among all the games and playful petty criminal activities, such as stealing food from stores and breaking into richer houses that have a pool. The reality is bound to start creeping in, and it comes in the form of a call from the social services who schedule a house visit.

Laura then goes on a crusade to find a stand-in “mother” for the visit, all the while navigating a new unexpected friendship with a neighbor Hanna (Ida Engvoll), who has her own reasons to strive for some playfulness in life.

Having had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2023, where it got the Best Director award in the Orizzonti section, Paradise is Burning is now well on its way to becoming a quiet festival hit after screenings in Hamburg, Busan, London, Chicago, with obviously more to come. Anyone familiar with director Mika Gustafson’s previous works, including a short, Mephobia (2017), that  explored a similar plot and a feminist/ music documentary Silvana - Väck mig när ni vaknat (2017), will find her first full-length feature familiar in the best of ways. Gustafson centers her film around the girl experience, the bond of sisterhood and features lots of conceptually important music.

Even apart from Gustafson’s own filmography, it is historically a great cinematic tradition to juxtapose the worlds of children and adults. Swedish cinema has its own specific trend regarding the matter, from Roy Andersson’s A Love Story (1970) to Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In (2008). It's a trend that somehow verges on dreariness, hope and a bit of anarchy.

Paradise is Burning fits the bill, with the exception that it’s anything but dreary or bleak. Sine Vadstrup Brooker’s cinema verité style of cinematography is vivid, full of color and slightly dreamlike. And the overall tone of the film, despite the serious subject matter, never wavers into depression; the movie is surprisingly light and full of energy, pushing through no matter what, much like its trio of protagonists.

The anarchy is present in abundance though, from Laura trying to come off as “presentable” by straightening her hair with an actual iron, to wild ritualistic dancing, to young Steffi enthusiastically taking out her frustration by way of beating up an innocent chair. While Laura struggles between her obvious physical attaraction to Hanna and the persistent desire for any kind of a mother figure substitute (Bianca Delbravo’s acting is exceptional here, even amongst other strong performances), the trio starts drifting apart.

Mira has to deal with an “in-between” state of her own as she gets her first period and enters puberty with no navigation tools, aside from the pads gifted by a sympathizing neighbor. Even the seven-year-old Steffi isn’t immune to confusion – she’s fond of dogs and not too much so about people, especially grown-up ones.

The world of adults is represented by a string of neighbors we don’t really know much about, and seen through the children’s eyes they mostly come off as even more lost and scared. It’s no wonder the girls want to stay in their own world, but the trick the authors manage to pull off here is in actually showing that even if the paradise has burnt down, some bonds can withstand all, even such an unpleasant thing as becoming an adult.

Review originally published during the BFI London Film Festival in October 2023. The film opens Friday, August 23, at IFC Center in New York, via Room 8 Films. Visit the official site for more information.