Paradies: Hoffnung

Meli doesn’t seem too upset about spending the holidays in a camp for obese youth. After all, they are teens who have fun like everyone else, drinking and smoking, sneaking from adults, playing games. Her mother, Teresa, is in a resort in Kenya. The boring routines of discipline and exercise are softened by visits to the doctor on campus, who Meli falls in love with. The nearly 40 years that separate the two don’t prevent the man from coming closer than he should. The shots in which they gaze, almost naked, are confusing, but there is a softness in the statement of love. In the universe created by Seidl, even the unacceptable seems understandable. (M. M.)