Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park Opens December 26th

Why do indie film-makers love skateboarders so much? Steve Rose on Gus Van Sant's new slacker thriller.

As Larry Clark once put it: "There is more life in a skateboarder skating down the street than in a hundred Hollywood actors." No matter that said skater is likely to be an inarticulate white middle-class stoner in baggy jeans - for a certain brand of film-maker, skateboarders embody the soul of young America like nobody else. There are plenty of reasons: they are the quintessential urban tribe; they are romantic radicals on the edge of society; and they are generally photogenic teenagers. Their sport has never been uncool; Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi notwithstanding, it's possibly cooler now than ever. And, occasionally, they get out of the house and do something cinematic.

On December 26th we get another skate movie, Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park. It received a special prize at this year's Cannes film festival, and continues along the path Van Sant has been hacking out with previous movies Elephant and Last Days: studying America's disaffected youth with an artful, non-judgmental eye. Article continues.