Battle in Heaven

I can only echo the majority of other views here and say , don't bother. It is first and foremost TEDIOUS in the extreme. I've no idea of the motivations, the "actors" are completely inscrutable (or also have no idea what the point of the film is either). The sex is gratuitous and the obese people are, to put it bluntly,ugly. Avoid at all costs. What more needs to be said? The long pans,static shots of her staring completely expressionless at him are just some examples of bad film making. As to the the unexplained violent end: are we to assume they really loved each other and are together in Heaven? "Per-lease"...How is it that some movies achieve this "emperors new-clothes" status amongst reviewers, who all band together and claim its really great when in fact its crap?

This film is about a man and wife, who kidnapped a friend's baby for ransom. However, the baby died, and they have to live with the consequences. The plot outline describes a promising start of an emotional drama. It could have been a captivating story if it was elaborated well. However, the plot ends there. The filmmakers ran out of ideas of what to do, and hence film a car driving around the city for minutes, or film the urban apartment blocks from a rooftop. Or throw in some sex scenes to keep viewers interested. There is almost no portrayal of Ana and Marco's states of mind after the kidnapping goes wrong. There is no description of the victim's family's grief. Instead, the film wanders around aimlessly and pointlessly. It fails to engage, captivate or evoke any emotions. "Battle in Heaven" describes no battles. It lacks any redeeming value, and I strongly suggest staying away from it.

"Battle in Heaven (Batalla en el cielo)" is a heavy-handed symbolic linking of class colonialism with sexual obsession and violence. We get a lot of nationalistic symbolism as the central "Marcos", bodyguard to the General, spends a lot of time supervising the raising and the lowering of the Mexican flag (and I assume the various double entendres of up and down the flagpole and a lot more phallic images penetrating vulva stands-in). We see sudden bloody violence spurred by sexual and other frustrations or just that writer/director Carlos Reygadas has seen a lot of Asian Extreme cinema with similar themes. We get a lot of controlling religious symbolism, culminating in a self-flagellating pilgrimage. Cynicism about celebrity and soccer players is thrown into the mix as well. Compared to "Bubble", the use of nonprofessional actors here seems like an exploitation of their faces and especially of their bodies, with very long close-ups of every part of them in unsympathetic poses, as the camera is almost as documentary-like static as in the work of Michael Haneke. Filled with tawdry, explicit male fantasies that could be construed as misogynistic, it wasn't a coincidence that I was the only woman in the theater, let alone that most of the older men were wearing long raincoats (though two did walk out half way through as even they could figure out it was much more political than erotic). Other than as symbols, none of the characters make much sense as human beings, with the possible exception of Marcos's wife, who I felt somewhat kindly towards about her involvement in a bizarre kidnapping. The General's daughter's, "Ana"s somewhat older boyfriend "Jaime" was at least cute, but her sexual appetites seemed a lot more fantasy than even realistic as a criticism of the teasing of the pampered upper class leeches. The sound design is intriguing, as sounds from a radio, a tractor, a religious procession and service all seem to set "Marcos" off in his existential acts. Commendably, the subtitles were black-outlined for legibility, so one could focus on reading those instead of looking at boring full frontal nudity and sexual acts.

A refreshing piece for Mexican filmaking, that's how I'd described this movie. Nowadays, Mexican films try to imitate Hollywood patterns with unfortunate results. Therefore is surprising and exciting to watch a film that walks away from all commercial stereotypes and proposes a new way for filmaking. Though I liked "Japón" better (Reygadas first feature)this film is in many ways different to his past movie. This one is set in the city and an important part of it is the chaos; this one has more dialogs but less narrative structure. In fact Reygadas is not trying to tell us a story at all. His films are more of a contemplative nature rather than a story with climax and an established ending. Highly influenced by Abbas Kiarostami, Reygadas characters are not played by professional actors, they're played by common people that had nothing to do with the entertainment industry. And unfortunately, here, the results aren't that good as they were on his past film. So, you've probably heard about the explicit sexual content. This, I think, is Reygadas biggest contribution: Never before a Mexican film has gone this far on the sex issue. He demonstrates that sex scenes are not supposed to be provocative, erotic or stimulating at all; they can be grotesque and raw because the important thing is that they look real and are not idealized. However I think the movie has a few weak points: the acting is terrible ( it looks like that was made on purpose), the sound design is horrible and it looks like Reygadas takes 100 min to tell you nothing; but oh! what a beautiful way of telling nothing.

Walking around IMDb and I realized that there're many good movies are being shamefully underrated . To be honest this's one in a few movies that in my view are perfect . Thoughtful story, well direct, genius camera arranging . There're some guys here said it's had a bad ,going-to-nowhere story then they can't get the message , the reason blah blah blah , some others complained about its slowness , then some avuncular naturalist point out that these actors can be compare with a wax statue of Paris Hilton , some "critics" bring King Kong (OMG) and LOTR (WTF) to intimidate this movie , so, kiddos , go home and leave indie spirit alone !

Battle in Heaven stops being interesting to watch every time the director decided to put in a scene or shot that doesn't add up to the hard-to-be-found storyline. The tragic life and the somewhat perverse feelings of belonging that Marco has is clear from the beginning of the film. And in the first few scenes this state of being is depicted very clear and immersing. Yet as soon as the film starts developing towards the point that Marco's unclear conscious starts to conflict, and his desire for Ana get's more troublesome. The movie loses track of a storyline and every time you think you grasp what is going on, the director put's in another shot that absolutely doesn't make sense and raises questions. (Why o why did they put in the close up of Ana's *, it was pretty though). The problem of this movie is not that it lacks constituents for a storyline, but that it has to many undetermined parts that explain the "why?" especially in relation to Marcos. Too much is left to the viewers interpretation resulting in me not really knowing what was going on.

I live and work in LA. Here's the reason for my rating. First you take a random * movie off the shelf, then you replace the physically attractive but creepy-brained human beings with the super ultra low rent versions of the same people. Only now they're large and less attractive, save one gravel-voiced sex cat, and they really truly believe they are making art. This causes every action and thought and move of the camera to s l o w w a y the f * * k d o w n. Then you take out most of the sex and replace it with documentary footage of, well, Mexico City. It creates a drugged-out kind of sensation watching it, by planting actors like stiff cardboard cutouts in scene after scene, usually staring into space amid saying a line or two like "I just kidnapped a kid" in subtitled slang. Then we're at a * house to dangle the would-be sexual carrot for a bit, and it's back to staring at a fat dude in a cloud of farm dust. As though it's in the same metaphysical dimension as watching City of God or Capote... or Harry freaking Potter. It blows my mind that there isn't a 14 year old in Quebec with a digital video phone that hasn't put together a more compelling film to replace one like this in the indie theaters. Adults having sex and all. The true offense of Battle in Heaven isn't that it's a transparently disguised mindless self indulgence which only has common-thread relevance in a world that doesn't exist in reality (a 2006 world thirsting for high-art-concept low budget motion photographs of naked central casting hopefuls). It's not that you can see the actress' head tracking the camera and then relaxing when it landed on her, or the splicing of the edit in the bell ringing scene, or the totally scuzzy texture and manipulatively depressing guiding hand of the story and of its director. The real burr under my saddle was the potential I thought was there from watching the first scene, which seemed so erotic and new and animalistic and folksy and deeply visceral. It was arousing. Then, the movie seemed to relentlessly punish me, pummel me for hours and hours into a Latin America submission. The movie made me embarrassed to have been turned on at the beginning. More than that, it made me feel a little repulsed even at the thought of sex. When I got home I told actually told my pet parrot that a piece of me had just died. That hormonal piece that gets excited at the gates of Heaven even though what awaits me is just another Battle. Watching this film aged me. I grew up more than I wanted to today. It was icky. I'm normally one to shun mean spirited criticism of other people's art, but obviously this is where I draw the line. These filmmakers deserve many things, but participation in Hollywood isn't one of them. I should know, I was in Gigli.

Set in Mexico City, Carlos Reygadas' provocative Battle in Heaven reflects the contradictions of the teeming megalopolis of 20 million, a beautiful city of stately old buildings and tree-lined suburbs, yet one in which 3,000 kidnappings take place each year with most perpetrators getting away with their crimes. In the film, a Catholic and a seemingly good man commits criminally perverse acts, a wealthy young woman engages in prostitution for fun, and a loving couple of limited means kidnap a baby for ransom from an equally poor family. Like French director Bruno Dumont, Reygadas' cinema is predominantly physical and there is little dialogue, narrative thrust, or explanation of the contradictions. Portrayed by non-professional actors, the main characters, like Bressonian models, show little emotion, and the film often feels like a study of flawed humanity shot by an observer from another planet. Marco (Marcos Hernandez) has been a chauffeur for a General of the Army for fifteen years. His unnamed wife (Bertha Ruiz) hawks alarm clocks and pastry in a metro station. Both are middle-aged, unattractive, and overweight, the antithesis of Hollywood glamor. The film is framed by sexual acts, and explicitly realistic Dumont-like sex is sprinkled throughout, apparently designed to tweak our level of comfort rather than turn us on. As part of his job, Marcos chauffeurs the elite General's rebellious young daughter Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz) around town and he is the only one who knows about her secret life, turning tricks in a brothel. To clear the air and perhaps to receive some of her favors, Marcos admits to her that he and his wife kidnapped the baby of a friend and that the baby died accidentally. Transcending racial taboos and class differences, Ana agrees to have sex with her driver but tells him to turn himself in to the police. Persuaded by his wife, however, he decides to wait until after the procession of Catholics to the shrine of the Lady of Guadeloupe. In Battle in Heaven, the brilliant cinematography of Diego Martinez Vignatti conveys powerful images of beauty juxtaposed with scenes of ugliness. Marcos, deep in concentration while driving on a beautiful day, is cursed and spat upon in a scene of road rage, the music of Bach's elegant Concerto in D minor blares at a tawdry gas station, and a scene of touching farewell is suddenly marred by an unspeakable crime. Unique and disturbing, Battle in Heaven is full of shock and awe, but it is the awe that remains after the final credits. Amoral and violent, unfulfilled by sex, Marcos seeks redemption. In abject sin, hooded, crawling on his knees to the Basilica, he joins a group of marchers he once called "a flock of sheep" and, in the moment where pure light and pure darkness merge, we discover once again that grace is everywhere.

I hate such movies. Being a frequent visitor of Festival circuits and fun of non-mainstream movies I like experiments but from time to time I come across some unbearable artsy-fartsy movie praised by people who must have come from a different planet than me. Battle in Heaven is such a gem of utter pointlessness, and its only 'value' are scenes of explicit (however emotionless and disgusting) sex - the reputation of this movie could have been built only on that, cause I cannot imagine any other baseline on which such a movie could work in critical reviews. Motivations of main characters are an absolute mystery to me, the atmosphere is colder than on Antarctica. I probably have not seen a movie with more emotional detachment in my life. Avoid at any cost!

Mediocre unknown filmmakers like to use aspirant actresses in cheap sex scenes to get easy promotion of their "art films". "Batalla en el cielo", a.k.a. "Battle in Heaven", is no different and begins and ends with fellation scenes performed by the hot and sexy Anapola Mushkadiz. The story is a complete mess, there is no explanation for capital points (for example, why Marco and his wife kidnapped the child of a friend?) and the screenplay uses explicit blow jobs, grotesque sex scenes with ugly and fat couple, nudity and even a man pissing his pants to be on the spot. Last but not the least, the pace is too slow and vague in this boring and dull film. My vote is four. Title (Brazil): "Batalha no Céu" ("Battle in Heaven")