Battle in Heaven
2006 ‘Batalla en el cielo’ Directed by Carlos Reygadas
Synopsis
Set in Mexico City, Carlos Reygadas's sexually explicit drama centers on a man in turmoil over his past actions. Chauffer Marcos feels compelled to reveal a dark secret to his boss's daughter, Ana, a wealthy woman who works as a prostitute just for the thrill of it. Marcos confesses that he and his wife committed a crime that ended in horrible tragedy. Haunted by his past, Marcos searches for redemption.
Popular reviews
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Operations of oppressive society?
Let’s just call it
A cinematic jerk-offI was trying to think the other day if there was a filmmaker working today on the world festival circuit that I truly loathed, and Battle in Heaven finally gave me a target in Carlos Reygadas. I don’t want to just write him off as working from a series of festival aesthetic clichés, even though he manages to do them all in the most uncompellingly way possible. More than that, Reygadas is assaultive without finding deeper textures beyond the obvious meaning of his images, which are loaded so much that every character and action should require quotation marks when writing a plot summary. Consider the sequence in which the…
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17/100
[Reviewed from Cannes '05]
Carlos Reygadas' Battle in Heaven opens and closes with an unsimulated blowjob, so expect plenty of comparisons to 2003's designated disaster, The Brown Bunny, especially from detractors. In fact, Vincent Gallo's forthright sincerity is the exact opposite of Reygadas' grandiose pretensions. I was no fan of Reygadas' feature debut, Japón, but friends of mine who admired it claimed that I'd missed the point, that what I'd taken for an overwrought drama was in fact a wry comedy. I didn't buy this argument at the time, and I'm even more skeptical after suffering through the suffocating self-importance of Battle in Heaven, which extends all the way to that godawful title. Still, the film features all the…
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Carlos Reygadas for better or worse in Battle in Heaven uses an uncompromising technique of burying any emotional resonance or character depth in favor of aesthetical and intellectual pursuits. It is a bold move and one that pays off in with his aesthetical pursuits with an interesting ethereal and detached tone along with a haunting score. There are lots of evocative camera work and striking cinematography with some key scenes leaving me breathless. As the film unspools though it becomes increasingly more evident that the intellectual pursuits are shallow. Lurid acts and actions try to take the place of genuine emotion to get a response to increasingly dismal results. The thematic material becomes more murky and confusing to the point…
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For two thirds of this film I was spellbound and then suddenly it span away from me. It is all very watchable but does get confusing towards then end, which is a shame as the treatment of actual graphic sex is stunning and good use made of non actors. Affecting bitter sweet movie.
Recent reviews
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Carlos Reygadas’ second film is certainly more coherent and better produced than his first film Japón. It’a also, well… alright, I’m not a prude or anything but… damn, there’s a lot of fucking in this thing. And not, like, the kind of fucking that’s pleasant to look at either. This is some Catherine Breillat shit. There is a somewhat compelling story and some spiritual themes in the film that could be discussed, but that’s not really at the forefront of my mind when I think about the film. What is at the forefront of my mind is hardcore oral sex and fat people fucking. I don’t think that’s what the filmmaker intended, but that’s certainly the result.
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I'm not one to judge on physical aesthetics, but... come on, man. That's just gross.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, lucky you.
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At times it almost borders on becoming some cliche "Art-House" film but I feel Reygadas pulls it off.
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Operations of oppressive society?
Let’s just call it
A cinematic jerk-offI was trying to think the other day if there was a filmmaker working today on the world festival circuit that I truly loathed, and Battle in Heaven finally gave me a target in Carlos Reygadas. I don’t want to just write him off as working from a series of festival aesthetic clichés, even though he manages to do them all in the most uncompellingly way possible. More than that, Reygadas is assaultive without finding deeper textures beyond the obvious meaning of his images, which are loaded so much that every character and action should require quotation marks when writing a plot summary. Consider the sequence in which the…
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Why does Marcos run amok? Why does he stand still, sometimes clothed and sometimes naked, with his arms awkwardly at his side? What does this mostly bland and briefly transgressive film mean, and why does it make me want to watch the director's other works?
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17/100
[Reviewed from Cannes '05]
Carlos Reygadas' Battle in Heaven opens and closes with an unsimulated blowjob, so expect plenty of comparisons to 2003's designated disaster, The Brown Bunny, especially from detractors. In fact, Vincent Gallo's forthright sincerity is the exact opposite of Reygadas' grandiose pretensions. I was no fan of Reygadas' feature debut, Japón, but friends of mine who admired it claimed that I'd missed the point, that what I'd taken for an overwrought drama was in fact a wry comedy. I didn't buy this argument at the time, and I'm even more skeptical after suffering through the suffocating self-importance of Battle in Heaven, which extends all the way to that godawful title. Still, the film features all the…
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Technical proficiency - the camera moves beautifully - jars against the use of amateur actors and unsimulated sex. The plot meanders without much thematic depth - none that I'm wise to, anyway.
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Batalla en el cielo
Marcos and his wife have kidnapped a baby, who has subsequently died. He is filled with guilt (I think). That's about as much of the plot as makes sense to me - I didn't know what the director wanted to show us as the film progressed, and what he wanted us the think about what we see as the film goes on. The fairly graphic sex scenes seemed out of place and the relationships depicted didn't ring true.
5/10 because I'm not sure whether it's not a very good film or that I have missed the point of a good film. -
On the surface, Battle in Heaven works as a litmus test for those sour, sensitive folks that feel personally insulted by the sight of a naked human body, but Mexican auteur Carlos Reygadas wants more than to simply provoke. His central figure is troubled by an escalating guilt, sure, but the director presents him more so as someone quietly overwrought with an existential and sexual grief, not knowing where to place himself on the grand scale. One early scene is a testament to Marcos's frustrated (and blurred) gaze, steadily surveying even as his vision is impaired by the loss of his glasses. Deep dissatisfaction leads to a casual jerk-off, the chiseled leg muscles of Mexican football stars informing Marcos of the fantastical lives they must live. Numerous roaming long takes show just how influential Tarkovsky has been to Reygadas, his active camera chaperoning a man dislocated by everything-- politics, faith, nature, family-- but his most primal impulses.