Seeing Heaven

I absolutely ADORED this film and could not disagree more with the other reviewer here. The things he found boring and monotonous, I actually think these very parts are what make the film so good. Its meant to be dark and kind of moody, i liken it (the mood) to Donnie Darko but not quite as bizarre. The dream sequences are stunning and are only repetitive to a point, which is the point i think, each time they are shown throughout the film, we are shown a little more, from different angles that reveal more while not answering questions.... it had me guessing to the very end...who is behind the mask? what happened to his brother? and is he even real? these are a few of the questions i found myself asking, hence me wanting to watch more and get more drawn in, until you are finally given the answers in a pretty awesome twist i reckon! :) I suppose it just goes to show, what some people love about a film, can be the very same thing that turns someone off (though its kinda hard not to be turned on! there's a lot of sex scenes and nudity, but its not gratuitous). If you want to watch a gay themed movie thats different to any other so far, id say watch "seeing heaven". I personally LOVED IT!

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.

This film shows why being artsy just for the sake of it is not good, especially at the expense of plot clarity and good dialog. Half of the time I had to struggle to understand what the character is trying to say because they are too busy trying to be poetic when a simple line would have done the job of describing what he tries to say. Ditto with the repeated visual nightmare the main character keeps seeing. It's the same thing over and over again which is annoying.

The worst part of the film is that the pairing of the main character (Paul) with another character who has no chemistry with him (Griffin). Paul seems to have better chemistry with Zhivago and Baxter and moreover, those two seem to care more about him. Paul's romance with Griffin came out of nowhere as well.

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.