Directed by Tom Tykwer
Written by Krzystov Kieslowski and Krzystov Piesiewicz
The setting
is present-day Italy. Devastated by her husband's death from a drug overdose,
Philippa (Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth, The Gift) a British teacher living in Turin,
tries to bring justice to the biggest drug dealer in the city. When the local
police ignore her information about him, she constructs a home-made bomb and
places it in the dealer's cover office. Unfortunately, the bomb goes off unplanned
and kills four innocent people. Philippa is arrested and questioned about her
motives. Inevitably, she is suspected of being a terrorist.
The only person who believes in her innocence is young police officer Filippo
(Giovanni Ribisi, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Saving Private Ryan). His entry into
Philippa's life changes her bleak outlook on existence into one where tranquillity
might be found even in the midst of corruption. They are unlikely soul-mates
who become fugitives from justice - but for how long?
(From an article by Nick
Roddick in SIGHT AND SOUND) [Read full article here]
"The first thing to be said about Heaven is that, with so many other powerful
voices contributing to its creation, it remains unmistakably a Tom Tykwer film.
(These voices include those of Krzysztof Kieslowski, from whose posthumous screenplay,
written with regular collaborator Krzysztof Piesiewicz, the film is taken; established
directors Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, who are producer and executive
producer respectively; and last but not least Miramax's Harvey Weinstein, who
seems to have seen Minghella and Pollack as a way of controlling the single-minded
young German director.) Charting the love-on-the-run affair between Turin-based
English teacher Philippa (Cate Blanchett), who is arrested after her assassination
attempt on a drug dealer leaves four innocent people dead, and Filippo (Giovanni
Ribisi, the caribiniere assigned as her translator, the film is drenched in
the fatalistic romanticism of every Tykwer project since (at least) Wintersleepers
(Winterschlafer, 1997)…
When Tykwer fully hits his
stride, the effect is stunning - as in the opening bomb-placing sequence, which
manages to be evenly paced and nail-biting at the same time; Filippo's scenes
with his little brother; Philippa's encounter with her childhood friend. When
he stumbles - the escape in the milk truck; the cops eavesdropping on the escape
plans and then letting them go ahead so as to have an excuse for eliminating
Philippa - the result is discomforting, like turbulence on a smooth flight.
Virtually indistinguishable from Tykwer's achievement is the visual style he
has evolved with cinematographer Frank Griebe, which is as much a part of his
films as Raoul Coutard was of early Godard. Here Griebe's work is at least as
gorgeous as it was in Wintersleepers and The Princess + the Warrior, with the
wistful muted colours of the Tuscan landscape a precise, painterly equivalent
of their function in the story (a glimpse of heaven on earth.)
As a director, Tykwer's
most striking characteristic has been his ability - not to say his determination
- to blend the technical prowess of mainstream narrative cinema (supercharged
action scenes, fluidly mobile camerawork, precise framing) with arthouse concerns.
Here, working for the first time with two non-German actors (Ribisi, an Italian-American,
already has a burgeoning career on the US indie scene, with occasional Hollywood
crossovers such as Saving Private Ryan and Gone in Sixty Seconds), much of Tykwer's
energy seems to have gone into honing the narrative tensions of the bombing
and escape in the hope that Heaven would work with mainstream audiences as a
straightforward thriller. (A scene in a basement washroom where Philippa suddenly
has to hide from two cleaning women is particularly effective.) But the overall
pace the director's other concerns demand makes this unlikely.
Delivering the 'Cinema Militans' lecture at last year's Dutch Film Days in Utrecht,
Tykwer argued that recent developments in image technology were not, as many
suggested, going to 'change the face of cinema forever'; they were simply new
tools available to the cinematic storyteller. Very much of the post-music video
generation, Tykwer has taken that easy familiarity with filmmaking in the digital
age down quite different paths to those favoured by such approximate contemporaries
as Luc Besson and Leos Carax. Indeed, his ability to harness all the tricks
of cinema to a highly personal vision is what continues to drive his career
forward towards the great film that, the seductive beauties and teasing thematic
riddles of Heaven notwithstanding, he has yet to make."
In his all-round enthusiasm and approach to the world of filmmaking, Tom Tykwer has been compared to the directors of the French Nouvelle Vague. He describes himself as cinemagoer, film presenter, repertory cinema producer, short film director, script reader and feature film director. Born in Wuppertal in 1965, he says of himself that he was rehabilitated by cinema. He was shooting his first shorts by the age of eleven. At thirteen he was working in the cinema, at 23 he was running the Moviemento-Kino in Berlin, Kreuzberg. After a number of TV portraits of his favourite directors (among them Aki Kaurismaki, Wim Wenders and Lars von Trier) he directed Die Todliche Maria (Deadly Maria), his first feature film, in 1993. To shorten the lengthy production processes, in 1994 he founded, together with Dani Levy, Wolfgang Becker and Stefan Arndt, the production company X-Filme Creative Pool. Together with Wolfgang Becker he wrote the script for the latter's film Das Leben ist eine Baustelle (Life is all you Get). On the heels of the romantic thriller Winterschlafer (Wintersleepers, 1997) came, in 1999, the worldwide success of Run Lola Run. This was followed in 2000 by the award-winning Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Princess and the Warrior.)
"Tykwer, right from
the hold-your-breath set-piece opening, takes risks with delicate, stained-glass
material, and the actors go out on a limb. Though the gear changes, you wait
for a false note, a mood-shift too far. It doesn't come. This is a poem in an
age of cinematic prose….
It's a brilliant script (Kieslowski's best, I'd argue), and Tykwer, aware that
he has a challenge to rise to, soars, gauging his stylistic flourishes with
aplomb. There are unforgettable images here, and lines of killer poignancy.
The chameleon Blanchett is glacial and magnetic, while Ribisi speaks volumes
with a mere facial expression. The climax defines the unique magic of film."
Chris Roberts, UNCUT
"As one might expect,
the early 'action' scenes are mostly successful, with Blanchett credible as
a woman whose righteous anger can stiffen to murderous resolve and whose conscience
will make her lose consciousness on hearing the dreadful consequences of her
mistake. Ribisi, on the other hand, is far less successful; his uncertain accent,
and reliance on a small selection of overly mannered 'innocent' gestures excludes
the possibility of identification when leaps of faith are required. The romantic
and spiritual denouement in the Montepulciano hills, lit by Frank Griebe to
echo Bertolucci or the Tavianis, is bathetic and without mystery."
Wally Hammond, TIME OUT
''Beautiful, awe-inspiring and authentically moving. It's close to perfection.'' UNCUT
Our thanks to Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, for their help in
the compilation of these notes.
