The strange thing here is how little Battle in Heaven has in common with Carlos Reygadas” first film Japon. The latter was a very striking debut, where the Tarkovsky influences were successfully internalised into Reygadas’ own vision, assisted by the stunning setting, the refusal to spell out the backstory, and the powerful visual effect of super-16 blown up to 35. In style, there’s very little connection between the two films (apart from an admittedly great 360-degree pan from the two central characters making love, to the world outside, and then back to their room), and there’s a lot to dislike about it, starting with the deliberately provocative and meretricious blow-job opening shot, which then returns at the end of the film with banal sentimentality. There’s a half-formed attempt here at some kind of social commentary, with confused parallels with symbols of the Mexican state and with local “folk” forms of Catholicism. I also have serious reservations about directors taking on non-professional actors, for perhaps their only acting performance, and enducing them to perform sex acts; or, in the case of the obese wife, to offer their naked bodies as a form of grotesque display.
by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm print
27 Nov 2005 12:26 PM | Submit Comment