Battle in Heaven

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Movie
German title Battle in Heaven (Cinema Title)
A Battle in Heaven (TV Title)
Original title Batalla en el cielo
Country of production Mexico
original language Spanish
Publishing year 2005
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK No youth approval
Rod
Director Carlos Reygadas
script Carlos Reygadas
music "The protecting veil" by John Tavener (opening scene) and others
camera Diego Martínez Vignatti
occupation

The Mexican feature film Batalla en el cielo (2005), released by the German distributor as Battle in Heaven , was directed by Carlos Reygadas . It contains contemplative, transcendent considerations of the people and the capital, but also very revealing, controversial depictions of sex. The film ran in 2005 in the Cannes competition , where it was controversial.

content

The often enigmatic plot takes place in Mexico City . The small, corpulent mestizo Marcos works as a chauffeur for an army general; his wife sells alarm clocks and pastries on the street. After the two failed with a child abduction in which the child was killed, Marcos is plagued by remorse. He seeks out the young, white Ana, his boss's daughter who secretly works as a high-class prostitute in a brothel; she agrees to serve him. He mentions the crime to her ...

Marcos' wife wants to keep the matter under cover and urges her husband to go on a pilgrimage. First, Marcos climbs to a peak decorated with crosses above Mexico City. Later he visits Ana again and stabs her. Finally, as a penitent, he goes on his knees in procession to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe ; the police are waiting for him there.

At the beginning and at the end, a blow job is shown with unusual permissiveness, initially incomprehensible, at the end it is understood as a vision of love (of the dreamer Marco).

Themes and style

There is no usual plot dramaturgy, the motifs of the characters mostly remain unexplained; numerous unspectacular subplots combine the beautiful and the ugly. The narrative often digresses in long camera positions to show further corners of the megalopolis Mexico City. However, it appears "not overpopulated, but empty - the nothingness of nihilism slowly eats its way into the center ", people are zombies. Director and writer Carlos Reygadas said that Marcos was trying to postpone the moment when he had to confront himself. Since Reygadas does not go into the criminal act, Marcos' guilt can appear as a general human, existential. Thematically, the work revolves around transcendence, death, guilt and hope for redemption in sexuality. The accusation was repeatedly made that the many meanings led to thematic arbitrariness. It can be heard about Ana that she prostitutes herself “to feel alive” or “out of charity” , “out of boredom” or “simply to pass the time” .

Reygadas uses the newly won freedom in Mexico to explicitly depict sexual acts. The very first shot shows a fellatio in which the camera circles around the woman's head and a cut takes place before the man's masses can move into the picture. The taz reviewer recognizes a game with expectations: “ One thinks: The shameful cut wants to take the explicit from the scene by swallowing the erect tail. But the camera moves back, and now you can see up close how the woman's mouth swallows her tail. ” One time there is also an act of Marcos' with his no less obese wife, who even surpasses him in terms of“ aesthetic disadvantage ” . It was pointed out that the poster with Ana lying down only showed a quarter of the corresponding shot in the film; the lower part could not have been posted, and the right half - the naked Marcos - would have "probably made the product unsaleable" . Another comment is that sexuality is "practiced so listlessly that it seems to smell necrophilia."

The main characters are played by amateur actors, the main actor is actually the driver of the director's father. Your acting performance has already been described by the critics as awkward and leaky, and Reygadas expected them too much.

Reviews

Several reviews acknowledge that Reygadas have great stylistic talent and uniqueness, praise the unconventional storytelling, but are disturbed by the sex scenes, which are perceived as unnecessary.

  • Der Spiegel sees a "transfiguration of earthly love through heavenly iconography and music - whoever wants to call it spectacular, whoever doesn't, call it mystical sexual kitsch."
  • The Süddeutsche Zeitung received only praise; Regarding the narrative style, she says: "The movement of this film is slow and persistent, sometimes heavy, then again incredibly light-footed, and hypnotically it pulls us along." Thanks to great camera work and precise observation of the people and the city, it has become "one of the most exciting city films , more instructive than many treatises on urbanism and the future of cities. "
  • Even the world comes to a positive assessment: "An unusual film, one who disturbed stirs makes aggressive - but fascinating for its visual poetry."
  • The taz place, the close link between the sex scenes with religious symbols come decades too late: "This is radical, no question, but at the same time it acts as a gesture from another time." . Reygadas is obviously looking for a scandal.
  • The FAZ assesses Reygadas' work as "kitsch, staged with a passion for images and equipped with uplifting music."
  • The Frankfurter Rundschau feels drawn into a "unique" film, the style is somewhere between Claire Denis and Christian Petzold . The theme lies in the "search for redemption without religion and for sublimity without culture." That compensates for the unreasonable demands made by the film.
  • The Berliner Zeitung is fascinated: “There are probably only a few directors in contemporary world cinema who rule their own universe as godly as Carlos Reygadas;” the film is “characterized by an overwhelming, unreal beauty that fits perfectly into an aesthetic of doom . "
  • The press sees a calculated attempt at scandal tailored to Cannes; despite the “bombastic images and clever tracking shots” , the film is quite un-erotic.
  • The Neue Zürcher Zeitung discovers “moments of mastery” in those scenes in which Reygadas seeks transcendence. In view of the visual power of these images, she questions the meaning and purpose of the "annoying" sex scenes contained in the film.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Berliner Zeitung, July 20, 2006, p. K 03: How to talk to birds
  2. ↑ a b Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 20, 2006, p. 14: Animal triste
  3. ↑ a b c d taz, July 20, 2006, p. 17: How strange animals
  4. ↑ a b c d Stuttgarter Zeitung, July 20, 2006, p. 30: Life is colder than death
  5. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt, July 20, 2006, p. 6: Long-winded suffering without redemption
  6. ↑ a b c Die Welt, July 20, 2006, p. 25: The cold of Mexico City
  7. ↑ a b Der Spiegel, July 17, 2006, p. 127
  8. ↑ a b c Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 9, 2007, p. 41: Transcendence, not provocation
  9. ↑ a b General-Anzeiger, July 20, 2006, p. 28; Battles in metaphysical space
  10. ↑ a b c Frankfurter Rundschau, July 20, 2006, p. 38: Heaven without faith
  11. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 22, 2006, p. 36: Fromme Seelen
  12. ^ Die Presse, April 4, 2007: The Rhetoric of Excitement

literature

  • Jonas Engelmann: "Better to die upright than live on your knees! Battle In Heaven - A film by Carlos Reygadas" (testcard # 17)

Web links