Battle in Heaven

For two thirds of this film I was spellbound and then it suddenly span away from me. Listening to the director speaking afterwards, I think I know what went wrong and I shall have to view again some time to find out. It is all very watchable but slightly confusing towards the end, which is a shame and may be my fault, that of the director or even of Mexico itself. Whilst I have never been to the country it did seem that part of the lifeblood of this movie was the tangled city of contradictions itself. Even though not perfect in my eyes there was enough to show that this is a director of keen and original talent who will produce much more. His liking to work with non actors is welcome and his treatment of actual graphic sex is stunning. Very affecting, bitter sweet movie.

As the director probably hoped, the opening and closing blow job scenes gained this film a great deal of notoriety and attention that far exceeded the publicity such a turgid, self-consciously 'arty' film would normally receive. This unrelentingly ugly and frequently agonisingly boring film is about a couple of days in the life of a man who shags his bosses daughter and who, with his wife, has kidnapped a child (for no explained reason). At times this has the artless artiness of such trash auteurs as Doris Wishman, but give me Doris' 'Deadly Weapons' over this tedious trash any day! Pretentious and dull this is a pastiche of art house world cinema and does not warrant your time

There are many redeeming qualities about this movie, and I think it's better than most people are making it out to be. I really hope the idea of a struggle for redemption comes through. It did for me. If it does, then the film, in my view, succeeds in telling the story that it should. I should mention, the opening scene really pulled me in. How could it not, being graphic and striking? Some people might think it was gratuitous. I think it was integral to the story.

Element after element, plot event after event set the tone for a story that is being told. I could really appreciate the commentary about the extremes some people may go to (kidnapping) in Mexico. It's not an ordinary topic, and it's treated very well. Very creative. Including the title which I thought was very suitable for the film.

Give this a try. It's good if you're in the mood to get a slice of life of Mexico. I think it does just that in a creative and entertaining way!

It can be said with certainty that all students of cinema would be completely mesmerized by camera angles used in 'Battle in Heaven'. Watching its deft camera work, one can easily say that the film's DOP Diego Martínez Vignatti has been given complete freedom to capture all kinds of emotions from characters' faces as well as from items surrounding them. One important scene shows two actors busily copulating with excitement. It is interesting to observe how the next scene quietly takes viewers out from the bedroom's window to a neighboring area where a television antenna is being installed. This is one positive point about this film's technical prowess. One problem area concerns sex scenes which are not easy to watch. This has nothing to do with prudish attitudes but there is blatant de- glamorization of sex. In mainstream media, sex is glamorized to such an extent that viewers are foolishly led to believe that it looks good only when beautiful, handsome and smart people are engaged in sexual activities. This is one reason why there are not many viewers who would appreciate watching how fat as well as ugly people copulate ? As far as narration is concerned, it is unfortunate that characters have not been developed to a large extent. This might be viewed as a major disappointment by viewers as characters' motivations are not clear. Director Carlos Reygadas works hard to reveal the behavioral traits of people especially in depicting how do people behave especially outside the comfort of their homes. This is one reason why the rich versus poor angle is explored but at a superficial level. As a last work, in spite of its inherent weak points, Battle in heaven can still be considered an average viewing experience as it says a lot by using limited amount of words.

This is an art film, or at least what the average movie goer will view as an art film. By that, I mean you're going to have to dig really deep to find a plot that you can follow. The scenes are too obviously artistic...a tear drop, a blank stare, holding of hands.

The movie is about a man who is struggling with the guilt of having kidnapped a child who died. I'm not worried about giving away any spoilers because I'm not sure there are any to give away. The movie is a sequence of scenes that make you wonder why they are in the film, and frustratingly so because you really never find out.

American audiences especially will be shocked by the sex scenes. I'm not saying that's good or bad. We just rarely see a penis in a movie, aside from porn, let alone an erect one, let alone someone interacting with one.

The reason I gave this move a 5 is based entirely on its style. The characters often stare at each other with blank faces but they are consistently unemotional. The characters look like real people plucked right off a Mexico City street. The sounds in the film are interesting and graphic, sometimes noisy. But it works to keep you in the film. The filming in Mexico City creates an interesting backdrop. You're just dying for a story to be drawn from it but it never emerges, at least not a good one.