A silly film, and absurdly balanced and calm. Ulrich Seidl makes you laugh at things you might normally wince at, and induces bursts of laughter rather than pangs of sympathy. Within the intentionally ludicrous context, all that happens here is extremely normal and reasonable. But Seidl mocks every aspect of his film down to the grain, and is merciless in his comic condemnation of religious fervour. Thus, the interest that Paradise: Faith may hold for its audience lies in how much Seidl is willing to provide us with, and how far he is willing to go. We are wired up to his jokebox and ready to respond. So when much of the first half of the film is wasted on tedious scenes establishing the strength of Anna's catholic zeal, he produces that which surely most viewers are ruefully awaiting: boredom. The danger is letting the entire thing become a one-joke enterprise, expanding no further past its most basic fundaments. The sudden and bizarre appearance of Anna's petulant Muslim husband, grinning maniacally on her sofa, like a pathetic version of a Twin Peaks villain, starts to awaken Seidl from his slumber, and he sinks his teeth in ever deeper as the film progresses. Beyond mere derision of religion, and specifically its rules concerning sex, Seidl stealthily manoeuvres into grotesquely black comic territory, all the while maintaining a grim sneer that he plainly hopes you'll share. Paradise: Faith is certainly a better film if you do, although I wouldn't know if it wasn't. The technical quality of the filmmaking, though, is worthy of respect regardless what your moral stance is. Edward Lachman and Wolfgang Thaler's cinematography soaks the film in tepid shades of brown that resemble old tea stains, and they fashion Anna's home into a human pen, trapping its silly, deranged inhabitants in there, and you too!
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