There is little actual plot to Paper Kids - mainly it just shows
pre-teens and teenagers walking the streets rather aimlessly, lower class
kids throughout, staring at things they'll never get with empty eyes,
disenfranchised from society at large and seemingly their own lives even
at their very young age. But sex is everywhere, even in their young lives,
drugs and guns are easy to get, and ... only in the coda does the movie
explain how its stories or rather impressions are related ... Styistically,
Paper Kids, a short version of director Shane Ryan's upcoming God
Got Ill, is pretty much a continuation of his masterpiece (thus far) My
Name is A by anonymous, showing the dark sides of growing up when
you're born on the wrong side of the road, being young in a world that has
no use for you or just wants to abuse you - and if anything, director Ryan
is even less blunt about delivering his message in Paper Kids, as
the film's all images and no dialogue, with most of the action not played
out but mirrored in the characters faces and attitude, with the coda
working as a solution for the elaborate puzzle Ryan has created. And
thanks to a rather impressive and actually eloquent cinematic language,
and a fine, seemingly authentic ensemble cast, the film is quite
fascinating and works like a charm.
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