Battle In Heaven
by Carlos Reygadas
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Anapola Mushkadiz, Bertha Ruiz, Brenda Angulo, Marcos Hern?ndez, Rosalinda RamirezDirector: Carlos Reygadas
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 98 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-05-09
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Mantarraya
Movie Reviews of Battle In Heaven
Movie Review: a crude, sobering and disturbing look at present day Mexico City......
Summary: 2 Stars
In BATALLA EN EL CIELO, we are presented with an unflinchingly gritty glimpse into the lives of three individuals struggling with double lives, sexual and social identity in a world that is alternately cruel and nihilistic. Marco (Marcos Hernandez) drives Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), the wealthy daughter of an influential family. They also confide in one another their deepest and most disturbing secrets. Marco and his wife have kidnapped a young child they are holding for ransom. Ana moonlights as a prostitute, as an escape from her mundane and pampered existence. The two of them have also engaged in trysts kept in secret from their families and the rest of the world. (Which are graphically depicted in the film in a style that can be described as anything but dignified.)
For me, the title of this film, alone, is a great paradox that is left to us audience members to ponder. Is this reference intended to be biblical or cautionary? Just what is it that the characters are battling in heaven? Is it a crisis of consciousness? Are they questioning their own morality (or lack thereof) in the face of relentless alienation? Particularly, for me, the character of the (at times) catatonic Marco is at once pathetic, as he blankly gazes into the distance, as well as poignant. You can hardly call him the "hero" of this story. He is more like the hapless anti-hero. It wasn't so much that I hated him, but, throughout the course of the movie, it was a rare occasion that I felt any connection with him at all, much less the acts that he commits. They are presented as incidental episodes (be they sexual or violent acts). It was very hard for me to form any connection with him or with Ana, nor with any of the other characters in the film.
BATTLE IN HEAVEN has been criticized and earned censorship as well as praise. This is due to the graphic nature of the sex scenes, as well as what has been perceived as an exploitative look at Mexico City and the nature of its people. We see scenes of soccer matches juxtaposed with soldiers doing their militaristic marches, as well as people engaging in detached sexual activity (maybe the better word for this is soul-less).
This is not a film I can easily recommend as a good introduction to Mexican cinema because it unfortunately left me cold and without a sense of any really deep emotion at all nor any deeper insight into the culture that is depicted in it.
Summary of Battle In Heaven
Marcos (Marcos Hernandez) is the middle-aged chauffeur of Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), daughter of a Mexican general who amuses herself by working as a prostitute in a high-end brothel. Marcos and his wife (Berta Ruiz) have kidnapped a baby for ransom but it went tragically wrong when the infant died. When he confesses his guilt to Ana, a bond of secrecy consecrated by the flesh unites them. As the police draw closer, she urges him to turn himself in but instead he seeks redemption from a higher power.Battle In Heaven, Carlos Reygadas' follow-up to Jap?n, opens with a controversial oral sex scene involving beauty, Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), and the beast, Marcos (Marcos Hern?ndez). Marcos is Ana's chauffeur, who has kidnapped and accidentally killed a baby. Ana, a general's daughter by day and a prostitute by night, confides in Marcos and performs sexual favors for him in order to persuade him to turn himself in. She is too young, however, to understand Marcos's confused mental state, and her sensitive position with him puts her in peril. Set in Mexico City, this tragic drama is as much about failed intimacy as it is about Mexican class structure, as Ana and Marcos attempt to bridge the class gap. A few explicit sex scenes show Marcos in bed with Ana or his wife (Bertha Ruiz), thus garnering it reviews that compare it to The Brown Bunny. In fact, the slow pacing and artsy, self-consciously composed shots do remind one of The Brown Bunny, in that both films are initially interesting but grow dull as their plots take forever to unfold. An intriguing plot is buried under seemingly eternal panoramic shots of the city, painfully slow conversation between characters, and constant close-ups of Marcos' face that are meant to capture his angst but only deter narrative. Nevertheless, this film's merit is based in its experimental energy, and any director who follows up a graphic sex scene with a cut to the waving of the country's flag (in this case Mexico's) has my respect. --Trinie Dalton
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