Paradise (2023) – When Time Is No Longer Yours
I saw Paradise on an evening when i was feeling tired, but not physically — but mentally, from the absurd pace of life. The film didn't offer me an escape. It offered me a mirror. And what i saw in it made me wonder: if i could sell years of my life for comfort, would i?
Hmmm.....A world where time is for sale - the theme seems unique but it's not. the idea of a world where time is for sale seems unique at first glance, but it's not exactly new. What makes Paradise interesting is not the concept itself, but the way it treats it: with a European sensibility, a cold aesthetic and a more intimate approach than other similar films.
In the Paradise universe, time is no longer an abstraction. It's a currency. A resource. A duty. And, above all, a weapon. The characters don't live, they negotiate. Max and Elena are ordinary people, trapped in a system that demands impossible sacrifices from them. And yet, they are not completely innocent. That's what i liked: the film doesn't divide the world into good and bad. But into people who choose — sometimes wrongly, sometimes out of desperation.
Honestly, the thing that hit me the hardest was, the moment when the character Elena loses 40 years of her life made me think of my parents. How time with them is limited. How i can't buy it back. And how easily we forget that every day is, in fact, a currency that we spend without realizing it.
The direction is cold, but not distant. It's like a sterile hospital where souls are operated on. The futuristic Berlin is familiar and alien at the same time. There's no need for spaceships or robots. Just people who lose their humanity in the name of progress.
Paradise didn't give me answers. It gave me questions. And maybe that's the most valuable thing. It made me think about what it means to truly live. What i would do if I had to choose between age and love. And how easily we can become part of a system we hate—just because it gives us something we think we lack.
Maybe the real dystopia isn't in a future with technologies that steal our time, but in the present where we waste it without valuing it. Paradise didn't teach me how to fight the system, but it did make me wish I wasn't part of it anymore. And if there's one luxury we can't buy, it's the awareness of the passing moments. And in the real world, every day lived meaningfully is a form of resistance.
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STOPIn some ways dont we already sell our time for comfort ? And if you buy other time you pay them pretty much like a company in the real world
@memess You're absolutely right. What Paradise shows isn't a distant dystopia — it's a magnified version of what we already live. We trade hours for salaries, days for convenience, and years for the illusion of security. And when we outsource tasks, delegate labor, or hire services, we’re essentially buying someone else's time — just like a company does.
The film doesn't invent a new system. It simply strips away the metaphors and shows us the raw transaction. Time becomes visible, measurable, negotiable. Maybe the real discomfort isn't in the idea of selling time, but in realizing how much of ours we've already sold without noticing.