Gates of Heaven

Ebert put this film on his top 10 films of all time list. Now for this film to be up there with Citizen Kane and The Third Man, I was expecting to be thrown from my seat... that didn't happen.

I don't know how to rate this film. All throughout the doc, I didn't know what to make of it. The people were strangely saying very, very profound things, but I had to try hard to discard their appearance and mannerisms. I have a fear that the antics of Christopher Guest among others mocking simple people puts this film as a disadvantage. Halfway though I asked myself "Is this a comedy that I'm just not getting?" It had a Guffman air to it, which is to simply let the people talk and expect you to laugh. But is wasn't. I listened extra hard and started to see that it clearly did not show any comedic elements, but I still didn't know what to make of it. This film requires multiple viewings, but I don't really wanna see it again.

Ebert is right, this film is about much, much, much more than a Pet Cemetary. However, it is no where near one of the 10 greatest films of all time. Ebert must have lost a lot or pets or have a fixation on that movie theater in the sky.

Early Errol Morris documentary, pitting the true believers versus the salesmen of the world. Both trying to fill a need, I got the vibe that when Floyd McClure talked about that specifically, he was really talking about the emotional hole left in people's lives by a departed pet. Rather than a hole in one's wallet, or just the hole in the ground.

Evidently the first part of this took place darn close to where I live these days: Los Altos, CA! Indeed there is a "Gates of Heaven" cemetery up by Rancho San Antonio, but I think that's just for us two-legged critters.

While this definitely had some clever editing (a couple of times, he turned on a word beautifully from one interviewee to the next), there was a lot of strange miscellany left in the film. I call to the witness stand the lady who loaned her son $400 for a car, but never sees him any more. Additionally the two squabbling ladies of Los Altos. Fascinating to watch, and more of a precursor to Morris' "First Person" show (worth catching if you can!) He just kind of sets the camera down and let's folks go awhile...like a confessional/diary as much as his latter day interregatron.

Somehow, whether by coaxing them with a Coors, or just quietly sitting and filming, Morris gets people to really expound on whatever details of their life seem to really matter to them. A couple of the pet couples are placed before tall images of flora? Not sure of the significance.

The most touching moment is the filming of the little tombstones for a variety of pets, all with some heartfelt little sententia or sweet goodbye. Putting it on film in a way makes these even more immortal.

Not sure how people who don't have any pets at all will react to this. I watched this with our 11-year old Wire Fox Terrier, but he zonked out (tends to prefer Bollywwod?). But I'm sitting there thinking of his mortality and the proposed $3K charge for cataract surgery and being a bit torn between loving my pet deeply, versus calculating the cost of him.

I guess the rendering man is important; he did all he could to wipe the smirk off his face having clearly jumped the shark on the pet v. food debate. And I mean putting food on his table...as much as quasi-food like bonemeal and by-products. For him, it was just a job *clearly* and he seemed perplexed how anybody could see it otherwise.

But bottom line, all of these people were making their living (including Morris as the filmmaker) off the death of pets. We want our lives to be filled with more than making our rent and paying our bills, and one way we try to do that is through our relationships with pets.

This film's alright, not up there with some of Morris' other work. Oddly comic at times. Like jeez, the pet cemetery called "Bubbling Well", that sounds like a code phrase for a rendering plant. Ick. "Gates of Heaven" felt at times like a strange good-guy/bad-guy dramatic film rather than a documentary. By the way, where are the trophy (Caine?) and guitar (Abel?) brothers today?? Looks like they're still in business

http://www.bubbling-well.com/

Bottom line, I'd say see this, but only *after* taking the dog out for a nice walk or a run along the beach.

6/10

PS My dog wants to add

"A cemetery for cats, come on you've got to be kidding!"

The film starts with an man talking about his journey to achieve his dream of opening a pet cemetery in the south bay of San Francisco. We meet the people who help him: investors, friends, pet lovers. We also meet the guy against him, the guy who makes a living out of disposing of dead animals. This is the first part of the film. The second part of the film we meet a family that runs a successful pet cemetery, called the Bubbling Well Pet Cemetery. We meet the father, the head of the business, his wife, the moral supporter, for a lack of a better definition, and we meet the two sons involved in assisting in operations, one is a former insurance worker, the other is a business admin college grad. This is the basic outline of the film. And this sounds kind of boring, maybe. But boring it is not. If anything, slow at times. Thats because the camera is usually completely still and people are positioned in front of the camera, talking into it. What is interesting is how when these characters talk they let loose and go on tangents, exposing their world views, usually in the context of pets, and what we see is the humanity of these seemingly regular people, their musings on life and death, companionship, love, filial duty. For instance, the first man with the pet cemetery idea talks about how you can't trust people, how if you turn around they might stab you in the back, but his dog would never do this because you can trust your dog. The dead pet disposal guy rants about, and is surprised at the emotional connection people have with pets, as though it was something he just discovered in his line of work, and his line of work is treated by him as just a job, not anything controversial. And the sons of the successful pet cemetery owner, one is a motivational speaker. He talks about projecting ideas of success and refraining from using negative words with his little daughter, when she has done something wrong. And the other son talks about his musical aspirations and how he found out what love is in college and then found out about the hard break up afterwards. Erol Morris succeeds at exposing the layers of peoples in a real light, sometimes showing the contradictory and absurdness of peoples personalities and yet also showing the genuineness of people and their intentions. At times the film is comical, at times very serious, and other times sad. Morris is a keen observer of human behavior and this film illustrates this very well. For some local history from the southern SF bay area, for an interesting look at peoples views on very common human issues we can all relate with and of course on pets, see this nice movie. 8 out of 10.

I saw this film for the first time about 2 years ago on IFC and thankfully I videotaped it. Since then, I've watched it 10 or 11 times and it always fascinates me. I especially like the last third of the film in which we meet the harberts family who own the Bubbling Well Pet Cemetary in Nappa Valley. They all seem so sincere and at the same time they crack me up. Errol Morris just has a way of letting real life people go on and on about a subject without it ever becoming boring...

GATES OF HEAVEN is one of those fascinating films that no matter how many times you see, the mysteries contained in it only get deeper. The film is a documentary about pet cemeteries, but what may have turned into a freak show- a movie about people who value pets so much they pay thousands of dollars to bury them- becomes an inspection of the human soul. The film is a deep, dark chasm of human emotion. Errol Morris starts his famous documentary style of just letting people talk. Unlike Michael Moore or Nick Broomfield, who are as much the subject of their own documentaries as their directors, we never see or even hear Morris' voice. He just lets the people tell their story their way. The film is haunting and will stay with the viewer long after it's over. It truly is a landmark film in movie history. Roger Ebert was not overstating this movies genius when he named it one of the ten best films of all time. My Grade: 10/10