Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Our man in Chicago is back with a look at a film he’s been dying to see. I’ll let him explain why, and what he ended up thinking of it...
Hey all. Capone in Chicago here. I’m still piecing together my Chicago Film Festival report, but I managed between screenings to squeeze in a non-festival film I’ve been itching to see for months, HEAVEN.
The primary reason HEAVEN was near the top of my put all must-see, put-all-other-things-aside list this year was because the source material for the film is the final script by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski (maker of the DEKALOG series and the THREE COLORS trilogy) and his frequent writing partner Krzysztof Piesiewicz. The other reason I was excited about seeing HEAVEN is that the producers placed this golden piece of writing into the hands of Tom Tykwer (RUN LOLA RUN). Heaven indeed. But the film’s initial run in Europe and festival screenings (including Toronto recently) did not garner the greatest of reviews, and the subject matter of a woman taking the law into her hands by planting a bomb in an office building probably didn’t sit well with critics or audiences. And I haven’t even mentioned that face that HEAVEN is, at its core, a love story. What was Kieslowski thinking?
HEAVEN is a film of perfect flaws. Cate Blanchett is Philippa, a British woman living and teaching in Italy. As the film opens, we see her as the calculating killer who sneaks into the office of a prominent and influential Italian business man and plants a bomb. But when Philippa makes a phone call just minutes before the bomb goes off to ensure the target’s secretary leaves the building, we start to realize that she is only trying to kill one person and doesn’t want any collateral damage. Through an unfortunate set of circumstances, the bomb ends up killing four innocent people rather than its target, and Philippa is immediately arrested as a terrorist. It is during her interrogation that we learn her motives: the intended victim secretly distributes massive quantities of drugs throughout Italy, including the drugs that killed her husband when he overdosed. As a teacher, Philippa has also seen dozens of young people become addicts or die as a result of these drugs. She contacted the police numerous times with her information about the businessman, but for reason that become clear as the movie goes on her tips were never acted on.
As the interrogation continues, the young police officer acting as interpreter, Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi,) begins to not only sympathize with Philippa but actually fall in love with her and eventually plot her escape and the means of enacting her revenge properly. As great as Blanchett is in this film as the frazzled, detached woman who is overwrought with guilt for her actions, Ribisi’s portrayal of a younger, stoic officer is beyond what I’d believed he was capable of. This is not the punky, wild man with the bugged-out eyes that he so often plays. He has a calm veneer in HEAVEN that is only moved by his love for Philippa. (The fact that the two leads have almost the same name and, as we find out, the same birthday is clearly a message send from beyond by Kieslowski. But what it means exactly is never explained; nor should it be. He had enough confidence that his audience had working brains that such questions are allowed to be left open.)
HEAVEN loses some of its steam and power once Filippo and Philippa leave the confines of the police headquarters and escape to the countryside, but that doesn’t mean that Kieslowski and Tykwer don’t have a few fulfilling surprises waiting for us as the film wraps up. For those not put off by the subject matter, HEAVEN is a sometimes troubling, sometimes enriching, sometimes breathtaking film that dares us to find the humanity in the monsters we create. I would expect nothing less from Kieslowski. More than anything else, HEAVEN made me realize how much I will miss his inspired brand of filmmaking.
Write me wax rhapsodic about genius passed!!
As always, epic work, Capone. Thanks.
"Moriarty" out.
