My Friend Paul

Most of us knew someone like Paul when we were growing up: the slightly strange kid who both fascinated and scared us with his odd or exhilaratingly dangerous ideas and antics; the bad boy or bad girl who took the risks that we would never have dared to take. Filmmaker Jonathan Berman provides a riveting chronicle of his relationship, past and present, with Paul, a charismatic kid who somehow fell into the abyss while traveling through the 1970s on the way to adulthood. Berman reconnects with Paul while the latter is serving a maximum security prison sentence for a series of bank robberies--the end stop on a precipitous road paved with drug abuse and (as Berman later learns) mental illness. On the pretext of filming a documentary about Paul, Berman takes him in after his parole and attempts to help him piece his life back together. As Berman gradually becomes aware of Paul's raging manic depression, he experiences a strange and touching ambivalence, a mix of horror and admiration: "I have made order in my life, but I feel empty, so I look for something to shake up my life; that's what Paul does for me." Indeed, watching the pain, confusion, and brilliance alternately flit across Paul's mind and face (which looks like a startling cross between De Niro's Johnny Boy Cervello and Travis Bickle) is rather like looking at a moth diving into the flames; it's hard to turn away from the spectacle. In the end, Berman has given us a video which is clearly as much about loss of childhood, friendship, and commitment as about mental illness. A moving and worthwhile addition to public and academic library collections. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (G. Handman)