Alarming_Passion

Very well done polished and original short. The whole thing of people walking around with TV heads is pretty cool. Then to see them go on about their daily lives as if this is all normal is great. What keeps up the suspense is how they deal with the TV heads; and they do it like it's the most natural thing.

You wouldn't expect to see emotion come through from people with TV heads. But it does. You even feel for these characters and by the time you get to the end you've forgotten there's anything unusual about them. I keep wondering what it was like to shoot this with people walking around and riding bikes with TV heads.

This film is great by every measure. Delpy and Goldberg have a great chemistry. The script is incredible moving right along, fast paced with a laugh a minute, really. This is how comedies should be written. The two leads have very strong characterizations, each of them with interesting and funny eccentricities. Delpy's French parents in the film (and in real life) were also great in their roles. She wrote the film with the actors for all these roles in mind. It's very tight and delivers. The comedy is sophisticated and intelligent. At times the jokes, very wittily, hit on the political state if affairs in the world. The characters' eccentricities build to a head taking us on a real funny, realistic, and touching ride.

I saw the film at the LA Film Festival, where Ethan Hawke joked at one of his screenings for his film, The Hottest State, that Delpy might have had a little trouble without him to lead her through all her scenes. Obviously it's the other way around. She's at the top of her game in this film as writer-director-lead actor, all at once and her triple roles compliment and feed each other for a wonderful result.

Goldberg is all great as well. He's funny at every turn. The story touches a very universal emotion of the struggle of two people staying in a relationship. It's both serious and funny at the same time. A perfect date movie, no matter what stage of a relationship you're in. This film is a roller coaster ride through all of them.

Cate Blanchett was awesome in this film, playing off of Giovanni Ribisi, who ain't chopped liver. You may remember him as the medic in Saving Private Ryan, or Charlotte's ignorant husband, John, in Lost in Translation.

Blanchett is one of those rare actors that become their character and you forget they're acting, which has to be the ultimate success for a actor. I can barely think of any others that pull this off; Nicole Kidman, Gary Oldman. Yes, Ribisi also. There are others. For Gary Oldman, at least, I think it may have worked against him if you consider fame a measure of success. He's so good you seldom recognize him as Gary Oldman. He's always his character. Come to think of it, considering Ribisi in his roles he's in the same boat.

Heaven was a great film. It's an incredible story and goes uphill from there. It's one of films you'll only find on late night cable or an indie channel. Incredibly underrated. It's a very touching and powerful story. It's timely in dealing with the official law enforcement paranoia over terrorism and the propensity to call someone a terrorist as a means to quickly legitimate brutal obtuse disregard for the human soul. Although, this aspect is a mere sideline to the plot.

The film is a superb story by Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz; directed by Tom Tykwer. Heaven was the first of a trilogy, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. But, Kieslowski unfortunately died before completing the last of them. Hell or L'Enfer as it's titled, is highly rated and apparently as touching a story as Heaven.

Heaven takes place in Italy but quickly reverts to English dialog making it an interestingly international piece.