simoneastman

I got drawn into this dark comedy almost by accident. The first episode made me squirm and laugh in equal measure. I kept thing it would veer to far towards bad taste or slip into sit-com territory, but the two leads have a rapport that drew me in and the writing walks the tightrope between farce and pathos with great skill. We start off laughing at the outrageousness and absurdity of the characters and end up sharing the tenderness they feel for each other, and while the series was a bit light on in many ways and we leave these two just at the beginning of their relationship, I'm glad it left me wanting more.

I found Seeing Heaven hypnotic in the way only bad cinema can be. Bad dialogue, poorly spoken, supernatural elements underlaid with bad psychology and a plot that doesn't even have the courage of it's own absurdity. It's artistic pretensions and mock profundity don't add depth and its literary allusions are over explicated and its moral message diluted by an air of incredulity. The trouble is this film doesn't have the courage of it's own absurdity.

That said Alexander Brocq as Paul his very watchable - he doesn't have the beauty attributed him by every other character in the film but he does have a screen presence and an air of rent boy innocence. Some of the other characters are genuinely attractive or menacing as required and the supernatural scenes are genuinely disturbing. But ultimately I was left deeply unsatisfied.