711 - HEAVEN

Movie-Hype (#711) - HEAVEN

There is no way to adequately describe Tom Tykwer's HEAVEN. A paragraph gives away too much, and a 6,000-word opus could not begin to cover the range of emotions and thoughts that come from such a complicated yet simple film.

I cannot recommend HEAVEN, but only because I do not know enough about you to know if you are someone who could handle and embrace what you see on screen. HEAVEN is in Italian, but that is almost irrelevant because the film is mostly silent. It was part of a planned trilogy by director Krzysztof Kieslowski, but he died before getting started, and HEAVEN is the only part we'll ever get.

The cast includes Giovanni Ribisi in his best role ever and Cate Blanchett in arguably her best role, but you may very well hate them here, so that's no help.

The plot involves murder, unintended consequences, true love, government conspiracies, terrorism, cults, and one big long chase, but that doesn't begin to explain the film, and in many ways has absolutely nothing to do with it.

HEAVEN is ineffable, and the only possible review I could write would be to someone who has already seen the film, as a discussion guide, an attempt to make sense of what we've witnessed, to deconstruct or reconstruct the themes to find meaning, or at least understand.

The best I can offer you is this: if you're not afraid of foreign films where everything is subtext then by all means jump right in. For the rest of you, watch another of Tom Tykwer's films. You are either going to like this guy or you are not, and that will be a good indication of what you can and cannot handle.