CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 02/17/06

Mex-ploitation

By yon motskin

Battle in Heaven

Carlos Reygadas (also directed)

Even assuming you admire and appreciate Michelangelo Antonioni, the Italian minimalist master to whom this young Mexican writer/director has been compared, Battle in Heaven still peddles pretension as art and pornography as provocation. Using non-actors, the story (in the loosest sense of the word) is ostensibly about Marcos, a middle-aged chauffer, and his relationship with the General's beautiful young daughter, Ana, a prostitute. Miss a line of dialogue and you'll miss that Marcos has kidnapped a baby and it has died. Some of the wandering camerawork and Ennio Morricone-style music is transcendent. A bookending sex act, a parade of pilgrims, and swift violence might represent Mexican problems of social class distinction and religious dependency, but the structure and presentation is such a mess that it all comes off as exploitation.


Battle in Heaven

Tartan Films
Not rated; 98 min.

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Writer-director Yon Motskin is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Film Program. He is currently preparing to shoot his first feature film, Cutman, based on his award-winning short that premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and screened worldwide.

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