Film Reviews

Battle In Heaven

• Rating:
• Director: Carlos Reygadas
• Starring: Bertha Ruiz
• Details: Mexico, 98 Mins, 18

When security guard Marcos (Hernandez) and his wife (Ruiz) kidnap a baby; it dies shortly afterwards and the pair try to deal with it in two very different ways. Marcos embarks on numerous sexual adventures while his wife becomes obsessed with the religious pilgrimage approaching Mexico City. Making a departure from Mexican film's recent slide to the commercial Hollywood approach, writer-director Carlos Reygadas sets out to deliver the total opposite but as a result never engages the sympathy of the audience. Using drab colours, minimalist dialogue, a slow pace and camera trickery - Marcos' blurred POV vision when he breaks his glasses and the constant panning away from the action - Reygadas creates an emotional distance to the characters' plight and makes it obvious you are watching a film, which is death. Opening and ending with scenes of fellatio, Battle in Heaven is going to attract the usual 'gratuitous sex scene' critique but when the sex is rife with sadness and involves obese people, Reygadas makes the point that sex is just sex and sometimes it's nasty, tasteless and raw but ultimately real, and if Marcos seeks redemption between the legs of his employers daughter, what of it?

Review by Gavin Burke