Heaven

Heaven

List Price: $14.99
Our Price: $7.59
You Save: $7.40 (49%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details

DVD details

DVD Reviews of Heaven

DVD Review: A poetic thriller
Summary: 3 Stars

Cate Blanchett is Philippa, an Englishwoman who teaches in an unnamed Italian city (the exteriors were apparently shot in Turin). As we are introduced to her she is attempting to plant a bomb in the office of a powerful industrialist. What happens next results in her being jailed and interrogated by the Carabinieri (Italy's most hard-boiled police).

Fillippo (Giovanni Ribisi) - yes, the characters have the same name in the feminine and masculine forms - is a young policeman, perhaps in his first day on the job, who is serving as a scribe during the interrogation. When Philippa asks to be allowed to speak in her native English language, Fillippo bashfully offers to act as interpreter.

I won't describe what happens next, for fear of giving spoilers, except to say that Fillippo falls instantly for Philippa, seeing a lost and hurting soul in her, despite the beastly crime she is accused of. He helps her to escape from her cell in the building where the interrogation is being performed and goes on the run with her, throwing away his law-enforcement career almost before it has started.

Blanchett is, as usual, riveting. This fine actress isn't, thank goodness, content to rely on her ethereal beauty. She allows us to experience Philippa from the inside. Ribisi isn't in the same class, and the film at times feels unbalanced. Yet his is not a bad performance; it just lacks Blanchett's finesse. The supporting actors are well cast, particularly the one who plays Ribisi's father, a Carabinieri officer whose pride in his son's following in his footsteps is shattered.

The screenplay was co-authored by director Krzysztof Kieslowski, the critics' darling famed for his Red, Blue and White trilogy. I haven't seen any of his films, but on the basis of this script, I doubt that whatever merits those films can boast are owing to the dialogue.

I almost didn't rent this DVD when I saw that it was made by Tom Tykwer, who directed the popular but slipshod Run, Lola, Run. (What persuaded me to watch it was seeing Sidney Pollack and Anthony Minghella credited as producers.) It would seem that, having gotten Lola out of his system, Tykwer has calmed down. Once Philippa and Fillippo have escaped from the city, the film takes on an agreeably lyrical tone without abandoning the suspenseful undercurrents. Tykwer has even managed in places an expressive understatement that is far more involving than the tweaked-up kineticism of Run, Lola, Run.

There is, for instance, a beautiful scene in which the lovers wake up side by side in the room where they have hidden for the night just after Philippa's escape. He opens his eyes to look at her; she opens hers to gaze on him. No words are said. None are necessary.

Estonian composer Arvo Part's moody, reticent musical score is another plus. The slightly over-ripe cinematography is generally well transmitted by the DVD authoring, although there is a touch of pixel freezing and thawing in the static backgrounds.

The movie's last shot is unbelievable and aerodynamically impossible - but it's so memorable that it may haunt you long afterward.

Be sure to watch the first of the deleted scenes, which should have been left in. It clarifies the relationship between Fillippo and his father. (In fact, I recommend you watch it before the movie.) Did Tykwer really think that those extra two minutes would send his audience into spasms of boredom?

Description of Heaven