Cold Heaven

After reading the other tepid reviews and comments, I felt I had to come to bat for this movie.

Roeg's films tend to have little to do with one another, and expecting this one to be like one of his you liked is probably off the mark.

What this film is is a thoughtful and unabashed look at religious faith. The only other film like it-in terms of its religious message-would have to be Tolkin's `The Rapture.'

I am astonished that anyone could say the story is muddled or supernatural. It is a simple movie about Catholic faith, miracles, and redemption--though you would never guess it till the end. It is also the only movie I can think of whose resolution turns, literally, on a pun.

As a (happily) fallen Catholic myself, I know what the movie is about, and I find a sort of fondness in its ultimate innocence about the relation between God and man. But if you are not familiar with the kind of theology on which the film is based, then it will go right over you head.

As a film-as opposed to a story-`Cold Heaven' it is not ground-breaking. While `The Rapture' is heavy with pictorial significance and cinematic imagery, `Cold Heaven' downplays its own cinematic qualities. There are no striking shots, no edgy effects, no attempts to fit the content to the form. It is workmanlike shooting, but subdued. Nor does it have dialogue or acting to put it in a class of high drama. It is a simple story that unfolds simply. It may seem odd; but at the end the mystery is revealed. It looks ambiguous; but with a single line the ambiguity vanishes in a puff of Catholic dogma.

In this regard, `Cold Heaven' has at its heart exactly the same sort of thing that drives a movie like `The Sting,' or `The Sixth Sense,' or `Final Descent,' or Polanski's `A Pure Formality.' All of these are films with a trick up their sleeves. They may frustrate you along the way, but they have a point-an obvious one, indeed--but the fun is, at least in part, in having been taken in.

Still, even if it seems like little more than a shaggy dog story with a punch line, it is worth watching for way it directs-and misdirects-you. Try it-especially if you are, or have ever been, a Catholic.

Nicolas Roeg ? He directed the classic supernatural thriller DON`T LOOK NOW didn`t he ? Strangely the aforementioned movie was broadcast on BBC television at the weekend which did tonight`s screening of COLD HEAVEN no favours what so ever .

You see it`s impossible not to compare COLD HEAVEN with DON`T LOOK NOW since they both have the same director and the same structure and for the first third of COLD HEAVEN I thought they also had the same plot except a dead husband had been substituted instead of a dead child , in fact my mind was set on this movie revolving around a grief stricken widow seeing her late husband running around Venice wearing a red anorak . This doesn`t occur but about one third of the way through the running time there`s a massive plot twist and despite being an essential plot twist it`s not explained in any great depth . In fact very little is explained in COLD HEAVEN which ruins the movie

People have mentioned the rather poor production values of COLD HEAVEN and it`s impossible not to notice them . If I didn`t no different I would have thought this was a TVM since it`s got a made for television feel to it right down to white capital letters in the title sequence . Roeg also tries to inject art house pretentions via spoken thought processes but again this doesn`t help the movie at all . One can`t help feeling Roeg should have put all his effort into the plot twists which are totally flat on screen

Cheap production values , disinterested directing and a really bizarre premise and screenplay make for a bad movie

Could this be by the same director as Don't Look Now or Bad Timing? Poorly

acted, clunkily edited. You only have to compare the various accident scenes in this with similar ones in Don't Look Now to see how much Roeg has lost his

touch.

Even the generally reliable Teresa Russell (looking a bit chunky these days, I'm afraid to report) cannot save this one. The plot is pure pseudo-religious hokum, the acting is wooden and Roeg's attempts at his trademark dislocation of time are pitiful.

Avoid this one like the plague.

That the release of this film by director Nicolas Roeg and starring his wife Theresa Russell was delayed for 2 years says a lot about its perceived commercial prospects. The Roeg/Russell partnership's previous titles - Bad Timing, Eureka, Insignificance, and Track 29 - were a good warning, where Russell has been better served by other directors, and Roeg's interest in fractured narrative has left audiences in a quandary.

The material here is based on a novel by Brian Moore, which is an exploration of Catholic faith, but the screenplay by Allan Scott makes this seem ludicrous eg The Virgin Mary is seen by a convent, asking for the "building of a sanctuary", and the idea of a dead man coming back to life being a "demonic possession" is dismissed by a priest since "Life and death belong to God, but everything else is ours to decide". We can tell Roeg isn't really interested in providing an explanation to poor Russell, whose Los Angeles pathologist husband Mark Harmon, is supposedly killed in a boating accident during a holiday in Mexico (the book had the holiday in France), when the conclusion is weightless. Much is made of Russell as an unfaithful wife and how it is often the disbelievers that are visited by God, but when we are told of the real meaning of The Virgin Mary's message, it is laughably trite.

Roeg uses Moore's plot as a supernatural excuse to present his editing flourishes, with cross-cutting between sleeping Russell, her married lover James Russo, and Harmon in the morgue; Russell and Russo having sex cut against Russo and his wife Julie Carmen fighting; and Roeg's big one, Russell on a Carmel clifftop as The Virgin Mary makes an apocalyptic appearance whilst Russell rolls around in the dirt. The boating accident scene is pleasingly underscored with the music of Stanley Myers, though we get water on the camera, interiors are generally underlit with matching muffled dialogue and Russell's whispered thoughts on the soundtrack, Harmon wears pancake makeup and spits blood, and there is a subjective camera shot with a white veiling. However on the plus side is a scene where Russell is surrounded by butterflies, her Del A Dey-Jones hats, her willingness to appear overweight in a bikini, and the remarkably unmannered performance of Russo. An indication of Roeg's touch is when Russell tells a priest of her vision of The Virgin Mary, where Roeg undermines Russell's acting by cut-aways to the priest and long shots away from her as she paces.

Marie Davenport is an unfaithful wife who plans to tell her surgeon husband Alex that she is going to leave him for her lover Dr. Daniel Corvin. However strangely enough, her husband is conveniently killed in a boating accident. Then his body disappears from the morgue, and this is when plenty of unusual occurrences start to interrupt Marie's life.

Every time I watch a Nicolas Roeg, I always find it hard to put it into words. "Cold Heaven" falls somewhere in the latter end of his work, but still it manages to hold your attention because of its unusually haunting and broad ambiance. The unique handling of the metaphoric premise (lifted off Brian Moore's novel) seems to shift back and forth amongst many different moody fields (thriller, supernatural) to eventually play out like a spiritual journey of religious faith, guilt, fate, and redemption. Everything about it works off one's emotions and seldom thoughts, which go on to feel like a ponderously obsessive dream full of miracles. What starts off like torment due to infidelity can suddenly turn into relief, and it shows love doesn't have any boundaries. What seems like an enigmatic and fractured structure to begin with eventually is answered. But I was less impressed and satisfied with the revelation, and the final 10 minutes or so.

Roeg's sensual visual style and steady pace has a sterile, but brooding air that seductively pulls you in. His filming techniques like crosscutting editing of the surreal flashbacks and visions can get jaded, but only adds the blurry nature of what to believe. Even the monologues of Russell's character's inner thoughts are well done and at times can really alienate. Dim composition, shading and lighting is pulled of admirably well in displaying a darkly stark atmosphere. The set pieces provide symbolic traits and within the beautiful images are also eerie currents. The exquisite and ever-changing backdrop that's on show is handsomely framed by Francis Kenny's glossy photography. Stanley Myers' bold music score is a oddly lingering mixture of spicy and light n' breezy cues. The performances are strikingly inspired. Theresa Russell is amazing in a very demanding multi-facet role. Mark Harmon and James are equally fine with complex portrayals. There's also highly capable support in the likes of Will Patton, Julie Carmen, Talia Shire and Seymour Cassel.

Not one of his greatest, but an interestingly flawed piece nonetheless.