Customer Reviews

Paradise Found

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am a big fan of Kiefer and I always wonder why he's in (usually) crappy movies. This is a nice change of pace for him since his character doesn't carry a gun or work for the government. Everything is well done in this move, the settings are great and the acting is done well. It would have been nice to have some extras on this DVD, but I guess somebody was too cheap for that. Oh well. Still a good movie.

What can I say? Keifer did a great job portraying Paul Gaugain. If you are an artist you'll love it. If not you'll probably walk away not getting it. Great movie to learn more about the artist!

I loved this movie. It was well done. Kiefer Sutherland's acting is as always outstanding. It's a beautifully done movie. The location scenes are breath taking.

As an artist, I'm often frustrated by the way artists are romanticized in movies. Few films actually manage to get it right. This isn't one of them.

That's not to say it is lacking in charm. The movie is full of beautiful scenery. In fact, if the whole story were edited out, it would be a better film. There are lush tropical forests, waterfalls, beaches...and part of the film takes place in France, rendered with equal style.

The plot features the early life of Gauguin up to the point where he decides to sail for Tahiti, interspersed with scenes that happen after he gets there in a complex, rather annoying format that disrupts continuity possibly to make a point about the differences between Tahiti and France.

The scenery is beautiful, the costumes are beautiful. The film is a treat for the eyes.

The supporting cast are all fine. The problem is Kiefer Sutherland and Nastassja Kinski, who play Gauguin and his wife. Neither of them are particularly good actors, but in this film they seem to be competing in some kind of duel to see who can be the worst actor of all. It's strange to watch a movie in which the supporting actors consistently outshine the two leads by so much. But that gives you an idea of just how bad Sutherland and Kinski are.

Sutherland's performance is alternately flippant, maudlin, hilariously overwrought, and curiously flat. It is clear that he doesn't understand the character he is playing. He also sports the worst mullet ever seen on a human being. It's painful to behold!

Nastassja Kinski sulks, nags, and occasionally bursts into histrionic temper tantrums. I found myself longing to reach through the screen and slap her.

The facts of Gauguin's life are ignored if they don't fit the filmmaker's romantic pretentions. He's made to seem a romantic figure who found success following his dream; the film doesn't bother to point out that Gauguin's greatest works were painted by a half-blind, diseased wretch lying in a hammock because he was too sick to stand. Or that he was about to die of syphilis. It perpetrates a false view of artists - that REAL artists have no material concerns, leave their wives and children to starve, and don't care about anything but painting the perfect picture. No wonder nobody likes us!

This is the kind of movie you wouldn't mind watching on an airplane. But it's not worth much more than that. Unless bad movies are your guilty pleasure.

If you want a good movie about Gauguin, try to find a copy of "Wolf at the Door" featuring Kiefer's father, Donald Sutherland. Donald has an amazing talent that his son has not managed to inherit. It's not on DVD for some reason, but you can find copies of it on VHS.

This is a marvelous film focusing on artistic passion, and the sacrifices made in fulfillment of that need. Kiefer Sutherland nicely portrays impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, who painfully sacrifices family, home and wealth to seek out a career as an artist.

Sure there are some slow areas, but kiefer's crying scene was the most real crying sene I have seen to this day by a man. I think it was Oscar worthy. Not "acting" crying, but I felt he was doing a natural crying that would take place at that kind of moment.

If your an artist, you will like this movie because of the artist's struggle.

This is a very good movie if you like Kiefer Sutherland and art. This is based o a true person. I found it very informative.

Nice to see Kiefer in other parts than Jack Bauer. It shows once again what a great actor he is. I think people would enjoy this movie. Paradise is out there.

Led by an excellent performance by Nastassja Kinski and a usual performance by Keifer Sutherland, Paradise Found is the story of Paul Gauguin, a stockbroker that became what we now know as a celebrated impressionist artist.

The movie moves between episodes of his well-to-do family life as a stockbroker, as a starving artist seperated from his wife and childern and as a crazed White artist on a South Seas island with his native girl lover. It's these South Seas scenes that are the most annoying, but where Gauguin paints what is now some of his most celebrated work.

The best scenes in the movie, however, are with Miss Kinski. She shines as Mrs. Gaugin through various emotions, settings of rich and poor, as a travailed, but loving wife and mother. Get the movie for her performance. This is definately one of her best, even if her screen time is not as much as it was in, say, Cat People.

I found this movie while researching the life of Paul Gauguin - evidently something not a single person involved in the production thought to do. The acting is phoned in, the score is cheap, and the historical accuracies are rooted in what could very well be no more than a Wikipedia entry. I've seen softcore pornography directed with more gravitas. I'll stop my review of the film here as it doesn't even merit the thought I've given thus far.

If you're searching for a title with more substance and information, look a generation back to Donald Sutherland's performance as Paul in WOLF AT THE DOOR. Not an easy movie to find but worth it.