Seeing Heaven

Alexander Bracq has a strong erotic presence, and a face as inscrutable as Garbo. I am shocked at the number of poor reviews this film has had. It is gripping, but sags a bit with repetitive hallucinatory/dream images. It is a scenario full of imagination and the director, Ian Powell almost brings it off as being a really fine Gay/Queer cinematic experience. It is basically the story of a male escort in search of his missing brother and on that I am giving away no spoilers. From being an escort he drifts into the porn industry, and most of the people around him have no idea of his mental state, which is very bad indeed. It is as if he is constantly pursued, waking and dreaming with nightmares and visions which are in my opinion quite well realised for the viewer. And yes, some may object, but the use of condoms is repeated more than once in the film. It is not ant-choice but just plain common sense, and the film reinforces that to be persuaded that it is the ultimate ' thrill ' of flesh to flesh without barriers by people with invested interests is not desirable. The porn industry is portrayed as being both good and bad, and there is a certain sense of camaraderie among the men who partake in it. The set up of this particular gay studio that Bracq enters is in conflict, where one director has ideals and the money backer very dark ones. Sadly the dark motives and the setting up of horrifying scenarios, fuelled by dangerous drugs is not homophobic but shows sadly how certain men in control of the industry can destroy lives. It is in the setting up of one such particular scene that I thought let the film down. It is shot as if we are suddenly in a Hammer horror film, or a scene out of such nonsense as ' The Devil Rides out '. The latter an appallingly badly written trash novel by Dennis Wheatley, hopefully now lost to the oblivion it deserves. This is a shame as it is reality we are dealing with, and not one of the lead young actor's hallucinations. This could very much lead viewers to thinking that all explicit eroticism is bad, and in so doing lead to a homophobic reaction. Overall the acting is average, but to be honest a lot of independent cinema has shown a lot worse than this. Despite that quibble the film is erotic in itself without being explicit, and for gay viewers that should be appealing. Eroticism in straight film has been around for a long while to be enjoyable as well as good film, and there is no reason why Gay/Queer film should not have its equivalent as being slightly arousing to watch. But to return to Alexander Gracq. He is a mysterious and strangely different actor than most leads in gay cinema, and this film ( I have no idea how it was received in 2010 ) is thanks to him, and he is in most scenes, and hopefully was praised at the time. I give this a 7 when I was hoping to give it a 10. It is well worth seeing, despite all its faults, and is a good contribution to imaginative cinema.

Seeing Heaven is a very artistic film that certainly has a unique and often hypnotic aesthetic. The depiction of the gay porn sub culture is rather plastic and not very believable, but that is not what really defines the film.

The bizarre visions that the lead character has while attaining orgasm is really the main focus. The fatal mistake here is that director Ian Powell lingers on these nightmarish visions and repeats them with little variation, over and over again until the viewer just loses patience with the entire project. They certainly are intriguing at the beginning of the film, but when one sees the same collage of clips reoccurring throughout, they become annoyances that only hold up what little story there is. Ken Watanabe's constantly repeating music adds to the ever increasing monotony of the entire proceedings.

Actor Alexander Bracq is believable and beautiful to look at, but his understated, almost sleeping-walking like presence adds to the gradual boredom that sets in for the viewer. There is plenty of steamy sex and attractive bodies in the film, but frankly, if this is what you're looking for you might as well watch a real porn film rather than an artistic miscalculation about the porn industry.

With a faster pace, a better editor, and a more interesting script this might have been a really great experience. As it is, I'm glad to have seen it, but certainly would never return to this unsatisfying picture.

This was a film that deserved more than one viewing as this film was quite intellectual, definitely soul-searching and soul-search-able, was quite the thought provoker, AND the actors were quite cute to boot. Speaking of actors, the actor playing the main character was definitely someone that Jonathan Frid, he played Barnabas Collins in an old television series, would have been quite proud to see to join the Brotherhood of Vampires; the actor as the main character was that serious, that cold, that vulnerable, AND yet still very human. This will definitely be one film that I will add to my permanent collection, and one that I look forward to watching again. Compared to the other "gay" films I have seen to date, this one stands out. Why? Simple: it brought you in with its puzzles, with human interactions from a very gay-oriented perspective, and you had to stay to the very end to see how this movie ended.

I found Seeing Heaven hypnotic in the way only bad cinema can be. Bad dialogue, poorly spoken, supernatural elements underlaid with bad psychology and a plot that doesn't even have the courage of it's own absurdity. It's artistic pretensions and mock profundity don't add depth and its literary allusions are over explicated and its moral message diluted by an air of incredulity. The trouble is this film doesn't have the courage of it's own absurdity.

That said Alexander Brocq as Paul his very watchable - he doesn't have the beauty attributed him by every other character in the film but he does have a screen presence and an air of rent boy innocence. Some of the other characters are genuinely attractive or menacing as required and the supernatural scenes are genuinely disturbing. But ultimately I was left deeply unsatisfied.

~~"The story is ludicrous." Of course she was referring to the porn film playing in 'The Big Lebowski'. Hell, if you are English, you are SIMPLY not aloud to be a terrible actor. Not even in a movie like this one. The lead has an expression throughout the film that is so blank, one can only think of a piece of paper. Poor kid. Maybe the director was telling them on the set to 'do nothing', or 'play it down'. Either way, he comes off emotionless. No one has any training in this film, evidenced by the way they garble most of the dialog. BUT, all being said - I watched this with a girlfriend - at least tried to... we could only get through 45 minutes...for gay men I am sure the faces were pleasing to look at. I am hoping someone out there liked it. I still have to say bravo for Netflix putting this on streaming. I experienced something normally I wouldn't have watched, and it is always good to see all sides of the equation. Still, don't watch for plot, execution, acting, mise-en-scene, or really anything I guess, unless you are gay and you like a certain type of guy (I guess), that looks a certain way. There has to be better gay movies out there. I'll let my girlfriend decide (ha ha ha)..BUT at least they did it. They shot it, edited it, and completed it. For that, I give the team who made this film some credit.