Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I'm very curious about this one. I'm a big Kieslowski fan, and Tykwer is defintely proving to be a young filmmaker to keep your eye on. Here's what one of our German readers had to say about the film:
Heaven
reviewed by Tina Irgang (aka Scalia)
Hey AICN,
I bet most of you have heard about the increasingly popular German director Tom Tykwer and his marvellous new film HEAVEN starring Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi and produced by such celebrities as Harvey Weinstein, Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella. Anyway, this first look at what Dustin Hoffman called ‚the best film I've ever seen' comes from Tykwer's home country where HEAVEN was released on February 21st. Here it is:
It starts in a flight simulator. The helicopter is steered by a young carabin'ero (Giovanni Ribisi). The artificial landscape glides by in front of him. Suddenly he turns the steering wheel and gains more and more height. The programme stops. ' You can't fly that high with a helicopter ' the young man is told. ' How high can I fly? '.
This is the prologue that already catches a bit of the spirit of a truely beautiful film that got critics raving about it all over Germany. HEAVEN is the latest work of Tom Tykwer, the director of such great films as RUN LOLA RUN and THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR and is based on the last script of the deceased writer director and actor Krzysztof Kieslowski who is probably best known for directing the French ‚Three Colours' trilogy. The film was originally planned to be part of a trilogy also, named ‚Heaven, Hell and Purgatory', but could due to Kieslowski's death never be realized. There is no need for that anyway. Tykwer's masterpiece can more than easily stand on it's on. Silently and melancholically, he tells the story of an English teacher in Italy, Philippa Peccard played by Cate Blanchett who leaves a bomb in the office of a mighty drug dealer who got her husband and many of her pupils addicted. But the bomb she has placed in a dust bin is accidentally taken away by a cleaning woman. It explodes in an elevator. Four people are killed, two of them children.
When Philippa is caught and arrested she learns that all material that could prove her motivation has been destroyed and that the police aren't quite as trust-worthy as they should be. During the harsh questioning, the young carabin'ero Filippo we got to know in the prologue gets more and more fascinated by the young woman. He works out a brilliant plan and eventually manages to free her. She follows him to the Tuscany even though they both know that their chance of escape is less than small.
Although this story may sound a bit confused at first sight, Tykwer somehow manages to make the film both a thriller and a love story without making its ends seem loose. Using deeply poetic pictures of sundowns and the gorgeous tuscanian landscape, he creates an unusually silent masterpiece that is not only melancholic and thought provoking but also a vivid portrait of the Italian people and their way of life, full of rare and precious humour.
The brilliant as ever Cate Blanchett and the often underrated Giovanni Ribisi match perfectly and even though there's hardly any physical contact between the couple during most of the movie, the looks the two of them exchange say more than a thousand kisses ever could.
In other words: If this relatively small film should ever come to a cinema near you, see it, let it move you and get yourself a piece of heaven.
Wow... a film that puts a face on someone who plants a bomb and blows up innocents. Seems like this will be a real challenge for some viewers right now, and I'll be curious what reaction arthouse crowds have. Are we far enough away from Sept. 11th for people to simply watch the film and leave the real world outside? I know I'll be there to see for myself as soon as it opens in LA.
"Moriarty" out.
