Explicitness is crucial to meaning -- by dwelling on the trim and beautiful versus the flabby and ordinary, Reygadas emphasizes both physical closeness and economic distance.
Comment
02/16/06
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Battle in Heaven (2006)
43
%
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Reviews Counted:53
Fresh:23
Rotten:30
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: Though it tries to be provocative, Battle in Heaven is lethargic and mind-numbing.
Theatrical Release:Feb 17, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: Cast entirely with non-professionals, Battle in Heaven tells the story of Marcos (Marcos Hernandez), the middle-aged chauffeur of Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), daughter of a Mexican general. Marcos is... [More]
Starring: Marcos Hernandez, Anapola Mushkadiz, Bertha Ruiz
Director: Carlos Reygadas
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Reviews for Battle in Heaven
I'd be lying if I didn't say this is one of the more original and piercing films I've seen in awhile.
02/19/06
Art with a capital A. Don't be afraid. OK, be a little afraid.
03/31/06
Top CriticA riveting work for anyone interested in how filmmaking devices can be used to make the whole greater than the sum of its individual parts.
02/11/06
9 Songs was sexy but meant nothing. Battle in Heaven is unattractive but meaningful.
11/22/05
Reygadas' second film was dismissed in Cannes--unfairly, I think--as pretentious and portentous, and while it's not as impressive as Japon, its intense imagery and examination of how class, sexuality, guilt and religion interface offer some compensations.
02/07/06
Depicts the spiritual emergency of an amoral man in Mexico City who plunges into despair and turns to sex as a way out of his funk.
02/15/06
Will one day make its mark in the film canon as the singular film experience it is
02/17/06
If you dare to see it, prepare for a challenge.
03/24/06
Reygadas' direction seems to wander from time to time, as when Marcos walks around in the hills for long minutes without a purpose, but he always brings it back home. He's a perplexing, but voraciously talented filmmaker to watch.
07/08/06
Fighting cliche, presenting the most flawed people as sympathetic and occasionally averting his camera eye as his characters neglect the saving of their own souls, Reygadas has made a movie that is itself an ethical dilemma.
02/16/06
Top CriticIt's the way in which these 'debased' elements come together in a Christian allegory of sin and redemption that resists easy, reassuring interpretation.
02/17/06
Not everyone is going to be willing or able to take this leap of faith, but those who do go along with Reygadas may well feel they have come away having undergone a stunning revelatory experience.
02/17/06
Top CriticInventive throughout, Reygadas' imagery becomes breathtaking in the closing scenes of religious pilgrimage, where Marco's existential crisis is brought to a harrowing head.
12/24/05
Battle In Heaven suffers from an infuriatingly slow pace and a certain air of impenetrable arthouse movie but it's worth persevering with for some striking imagery and some genuinely shocking scenes.
12/24/05
Promiscuously inhabiting several planes at once, Reygadas's restless inquisition may already be this year's movie to beat.
02/14/06
Top CriticThere's more to this controversial and aesthetically cold film than just its explicit sex scenes. Honest.
04/01/06
Reygadas proves that rare filmmaker interested in tackling both the personal and the political through expressly confrontational means.
08/24/06
[Reygadas has] got an astonishing technique. Here's hoping that someday he'll use it to make a movie.
02/16/06
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12/24/05
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