Japón and Battle in Heaven
The former, an arthouse darling, was lauded at Cannes and numerous international festivals; the latter received scant attention during its meager release
Reviewed by Wells Dunbar, Fri., May 19, 2006
Japón
Tartan, $14.99
Battle in Heaven
Tartan, $24.99
For your consideration: Japón and Battle in Heaven (Batalla en el Cielo), together the combined works of Mexican director Carlos Reygadas. The former, an arthouse darling, lauded at Cannes and numerous international festivals; the latter received scant attention during its meager release, before the dump to DVD. Que pasa?
Reygadas' films offer little in the way of plot-driven narrative: Viewers waiting for such will invariably be disappointed. But unlike similarly tonal outings – Gus Van Sant's meandering death triptych, or Wong Kar Wai's wispy romanticisms – Reygadas' works swagger with Hemingway-esque, against-the-elements machismo, while inverting it to reveal its endemic, banal cruelty. It's most apparent in the opening to Japón, when a child asks for assistance in popping the head off a downed bird. The grizzled, nameless protagonist obliges, beginning his trip into a remote villa where he plans to kill himself. His descent is one of operatic grandeur, as captured in the sweeping 16-millimeter camerawork of the opening sequence, while his redemption is alternately contemplative – Reygadas is fond of sustained, first-person shots from his characters' POV.
Japón is the superior of Reygadas' two outings, keener in eye and (mostly) unencumbered by the sticky sexual politics of Battle in Heaven. It's also a film critic's wet dream: pastoral, intensely lyrical, and allegorical. In transplanting Japón's exquisitely realized ennui from the country to Mexico City, Battle is saddled with a host of heretofore unaddressed issues, the least of which being sexuality. Much has been made of the film's explicit sexual content – actual fucking and blow jobs – between the two untrained leads. Whatever Reygada sought by pairing Marcos Hernández's obese army detail with Anapola Mushkadiz's rapacious dreadlocked escort is muddled, their redemption adrift in a miasma of Catholicism, militarism, soccer, and other ailments of the Mexican psyche. Still, the cluttered urban cacophony creates an immense sound design, while Reygadas' painterly composition and changing light provides transcendent moments.
It's clear in an interview with Reygadas supplementing Battle that he felt assailed by critics finding his stark-relief sexuality confrontational and grotesque. Reygadas may have been wrongly accused, as, if anything, he seeks to transcend the flesh. But the interview also makes clear, the director's considerable ambitions for his sophomore outing somewhat outstripped his abilities.
Also Out Now
The Neighbor No. 13 (Tokyo Shock, $19.95): This manga adaption of – what else? – a bullied youngster's revenge is notable for its grizzly atmospherics and Takashi Miike's disembowelment cameo.
