Sydney Film Festival 2006: Battle in Heaven

Battle in Heaven, directed by Carlos Reygadas 2005.

Words really can't describe how disappointed I was in this film. Billed as a highly controversial and though provoking piece of cinema, I found the film to be an excercise numbing the mind with its flacid content and penchant for excessively graphic images.

The only thing controversial about this film seems to be the fact that they have an attractive woman fully nude engaging in various sex acts with a much older mexican man who is also fully nude. This is not the "soft" simulated sex scenes you might find on a chessy late night cinemax flick. It's the real deal, or as close to as real as you can get without grabbing that XXX classification.

But don't get me wrong while that type of content is not my first choice on the list of things I'd like to see in a film, if its there I'll stick it out, if there's good reason for it. There is and was a lot of people completely enraged at the screenings of this film, purely because of its graphic quality, but really if you've seen any film such as In the Realm of the Senses than the graphic nature of Battle in Heaven pales in comparison.

The problem is, that's all there is too the film really. Perhaps there is some profound message that I am missing, but quite frankly the movie was so boring, in my opinion, that I was spending most of my energy trying to stay awake after awhile.

Ok, maybe I'm exxagerating a little bit on the sleeping part, but for good reason. Visually the movie is unimpressive, the acting is non-existent, and the music while sometimes inspired is not enough to save an otherwise horrid production.

I suppose I should at least tell you the premise of the film. Marcos works for a wealthy family and at somepoint shortly before the beginning of the film Marcos and his wife had kidnapped a baby. The only problem is the baby died on them by accident. So know Marcos is not in the best of situations. Any way he is still driving around his bosses daughter, who, for some unexplained reason, works at a 'secret' brothel. Oh and its obvious Marcos has a thing for Ana, his bosses daughter. Well Marcos needs to get things off his chest and he tells Ana what happened with the baby. This is where things should pick up (you would think) but Ana nonchalantly tells Marcos he should turn himself in and wanders off. The film meanders after this, and I have to mention.......since critics seemed to hail this as being particularly brave and daring.....even takes the time to show Marcos and his wife (both of whom weigh somewhere between 250-300lbs) having full on pornography style sex. Now I applaud the idea of 'normal' looking people having sex on screen rather than glam models, but there is a thing as carrying the point a little to far....personally I wouldn't want to subject anyone to having to see me nude on screen....much less having to witness a sex act involving people who are so overweight as to be putting themselves at severe health risks.

In the end, I kept asking myself where the film was going, what was it getting at, and what could I take from it. As hard as I tried a couldn't come up with a good answer. Personally, I would recommend that you save yourself the trouble and just rent In the Realm of the Senses by Nagisa Oshima. Much more graphic of a film, but at least there is some depth to the movie, and seeing as it came out in 1976 you'll quickly realize just how regressive a film like Battle in Heaven really is.

*One Star