Paradise: Love

A 50-year-old European woman travels to Kenya as a sex tourist, seeking the company of the African men who make a living selling themselves on the beach. Nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2012, this is the first chapter in director Ulrich Seidl's dramatic trilogy of Paradise films.

Austrian mother and frustrated care-giver Teresa (Margarethe Tiesel) looks to break the monotony of her dreary life, leaving her caregiver job and sullen teenage daughter to pair up with her friend (Inge Maux) and hit the Kenyan beaches. There, for the right price, hustlers will fulfil almost any request. The duo make great headway through the meat market’s willing suitors, yet Teresa eventually discovers that while it is love she seeks, it remains one commodity that is not for sale.

Seidl's three Paradise movies (originally conceived as a single film but later expanded) follows three woman from the same family and their fruitless experiences as they seek happiness during individual summer vacations. In Love one travels to Kenya as a sex tourist; in Faith one tries to propagate Catholicism; in Hope one attends a weight-loss camp.

Less