Battle In Heaven :: Wessex Scene Online

Battle In Heaven

6th December 2005
Caroline Godfrey

About this film

Title	Batalla en el cielo
Director	Carlos Reygadas
Release Date	28 October 2005
Certificate
Genres	Comedy, Drama, Romance
Our Rating	4.0/5.0

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More by Caroline Godfrey

May 06 - Failure to Launch
Mar 06 - Derailed

This film, the follow up to Mexican director Carlos Reygadas’s Japón, is not without its flaws.

After watching Battle in Heaven I wasn’t sure whether I was the victim of an elaborate hoodwink convincing moviegoers that a film is worthwhile simply because it is unintelligible, or whether I had just witnessed the second offering of a cinematic genius.

Japón has become notorious for its graphic sex scenes, and the advertising posters for Battle in Heaven, with their gleeful announcement that the film "contains real sex", pronounce this movie as an appropriate successor.

Apart from this one unambiguous gloat, the advertisements are strangely deceptive. The spiritually enhanced photograph of a beautiful, naked, young woman belies what seems to be the director’s true purpose, to create a deliberately uncomfortable mediation on ugliness (moral and physical) as a preface to its question over the chance of redemption in such a grubby world. In addressing this dilemma, Battle in Heaven tells the story of an unlikeable anti-hero, a taxi-driver named Marcus (Hernandez).

The plot hinges around an event that happens off-screen – the death of baby that Marcus and his wife (Ruiz) have just kidnapped. The movie explores Marcus’s ensuing guilt and consequent attempt to wrest something good out of life by having sex with his boss’s daughter (Mushkadiz), an inexplicably serene looking, part-time prostitute.

Throughout the film, unflinching close-ups of raw, naked (and at times grotesque) flesh is surreally coupled with opaque symbols and juxtapositions, supported in turn by the emotionally impassable faces of the non-professional actors. Although visually intriguing, the "story" of Battle in Heaven is frequently interrupted by the film’s drive to prove itself as a shocking cinematic experiment. The camera’s ponderous sweep across scenes of everyday life and the enigmatic silences that have been built into both action and dialogue will simply frustrate the viewer who expects strong narrative to be the backbone of any film. In fact, the action that drives the story, the kidnap of the baby is never adequately explained, nor is the background or motivation of any of the main characters. Battle in Heaven is more about pushing the boundaries than engaging its audience in a fictional universe and its prime aim seems to be questioning how far we can stretch the complacent duality of art-house cinema. How far should aestheticised flab dominate plot or the serious exploration of human motivation? Admittedly there is something compellingly urgent about Reygadas’s message, but it’s a message that might find an exhibition of conceptual modern art a better home than the cinema.

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