Créatures célestes

When Juliet Hulme moves from England to New Zealand with her parents, she meets Pauline Rieper – a rather disaffected girl who is happy to have a friend. As they get to know each other, Pauline is pulled into the fantasy world of Royals and scandal that Juliet has written. However as the two fall deeper and deeper into the characters they have created, their relationship becomes ever more intense and their parents step in to separate them. Facing a geographical separation, the two plot to take revenge on the adults who seek to split them up.

At the time of release I remember thinking that this was an unusual film for Peter Jackson to have made given that he was more of a gore merchant as I was aware. Watching it not it still feels like a strange film for him to have done, but now it is for different reasons – that is, that he has made one of the biggest trilogies of all time™ etc! Ignoring his previous and later works, this is a great little film and it acts as a showcase for Jackson as it shows he can be imaginative and also sensitive when required – certainly coming to this on the back of Bad Taste, I had low expectations on how he would do it but he did it. The true story is adapted from Pauline's diaries and, while it must be impossible to see how they saw the world, the fantastic fantasy worlds we see here are better than the probably quite repressed world they had in mind – from this film I saw the two as being more insular and self defensive than the elaborate fantasy scenes would suggest. The film did well to depict their relationship, immediately having worrying signs but being the sort of thing kids do – and the killing hinted at by the film's opening is brutal and unpleasant – we are never allowed to side with these people.

The direction is great, creating normal domestic scenes with the same confidence as it uses full size plastic models within the fantasy sequences.

The cast also do well, in particular two great lead performances. Naturally Winslet gets all the kudos for her character is ott at times and spins wildly emotionally – a hard role to carry off but she does it very well and showed great promise (even if she looks too old for the role in my opinion). Lynskey impressed me much more as her role was more controlled and was delivered a lot better by an actress who looked like a shy, embarrassed little girl. Both were great for different reasons and they are a big reason this film works so well. Support from the likes of O'Connor, Kent and a few other well known faces are also good but there is never a question about their role within the film – they are supporting the main two.

Overall I imagine this film will get a audience boost now as lots of LOTR fans go trawling through Jackson's back catalogue to see what else he has done (boy are they in for a surprise!) and I'm glad more people will see it.

The direction is great and it delivers a complex story in a colourful and fanciful manner, but the main praise should go to the two lead actresses who deal with really difficult characters and do so in a confident and believable manner – even if the material means that many of us will want to find what they did abhorrent.

I really liked this film. Like the overwhelming majority of people, I didn't know about the real crime behind the story of this film, where the friendship between two teenagers turns into a sexual and romantic obsession and leads the two young women to kill the mother of one of them, in hope that they can run away or stay together.

Directed by Peter Jackson, still a long way from dreaming that he would be as successful as "The Lord of the Rings", the film is excellent and does a great job in terms of recreating the events and psychology of the two central characters. Of course, according to what I've read, the facts are not entirely clear as to the nature of the relationship the two girls had, but it seems quite clear that, at the very least, there was a very strong obsession between them and a certain dissociation from reality. , through the creation of a fantasy alternative world that functioned as an escape. The film shows us this clearly and manages to maintain a certain ambiguity where it seems most necessary.

This was the debut film for young Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynksey. None of them seem exactly like newcomers or inexperienced in the cinematographic art, which can only be a revealing parameter of talent, and of the great qualities that both have revealed since then, most especially Winslet, who has dedicated more time to cinema and achieved a different level of recognition. In addition to them, we also have the excellent performances by Sarah Peirse, Clive Morrison and Diana Kent, in the role of three of the paternal figures.

Technically, the film doesn't have any major problems. The pace is ideal, there are no dead moments or situations that seem to be too much or to have been stilted, and the editing is very good and well executed. The cinematography is excellent, with great color and light, particularly in the fantasy scenes, where we enter the fantastic world that these young women created for themselves. The sets are good and, together with the costumes, recreate the period portrayed with verisimilitude. The filming locations are magnificent, very well selected and used. The soundtrack is equally good.

In retrospect, you'd never know this is a Peter Jackson film. Not after becoming familiar with his recent work, anyway. "Heavenly Creatures" contains all the subtlety and nuances that his later work desperately needs - the graceful arc of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, despite its critical lauding, doesn't hold a candle to this film.

Melanie Lynskey plays Pauline, a young girl who, along with her best friend Juliet (Kate Winslet), often envisions herself in fantasy worlds and alternate realities. The two girls' parents become so worried about their fantasies that they separate the two girls - but, in a fit of rage, Melanie and Juliet plan a dreadful revenge.

Most shocking of all is that this story sounds like some lame supernatural thriller that would be on a made-for-TV special, in which the girls share some kind of psychic connection - but it's not like that at all. It's a true story, and it's handled quite delicately.

The performances are, for the most part, very good. Winslet shines in one of her earlier performances and displays raw talent.

Overall, watching this I couldn't help but be reminded of how talented Peter Jackson used to be, and how lately he has succumbed to making, for lack of a better description, Hollywood shlock. I liked "Lord of the Rings." I liked "King Kong." But this is better.

Perhaps the premier concern of modern filmmakers is locating somewhere in the film exactly where the film-making process is. This is often incorrectly called irony, self-reference or the odd construction of reflexivity. I call it 'folding' and it seems to be everywhere and often in rich and engaging forms. Moreover, it seem to be a central concern of the Australian performing arts community. I imagine it can be traced back to a single person in the seventies on Bennelong Point.

So much of what we have gotten from this tradition has enriched us all, not the least of which are the actresses who master folded acting. That's where we get a portrayal of a character and another simultaneous portrayal of an actor portraying that character. Sometimes the 'character' in these two portrayals isn't quite the same. Three mainstream film actresses today can do this. Two are Australian, and one is Kate.

This is her first film, and it is no surprise at all that the filmmaker has chosen to build a structure that is a representation and is about representation. The original, true story is about two girls, enwrapped in mutual fantasy, probably enhanced by the flush of sex, whose fantastic adventures get out of hand. From this, Jackson reshapes it all. It is now a film about films. Now the girls' fantasy world is a Camelot driven by forces in film. They write. They sculpt characters, based on film characters. Those film characters come 'alive' and form a world in which the girls live in parallel with the real world. So far so good.

But Jackson goes further. Some of the film prototypes are simple characters: Mario Lanza-like. Simple glamour with no pretense or irony. But there is the amazing Orson Welles also. Orson is not pretty, he is not direct, he is a folded prototype himself. The two worlds conflict, and that conflict is reflected in each world. In the Borovnian ('borrow'-nian) world, this is a conflict between two clay figures: the Welles and the Lanza, the winner getting to bed and impregnate both princesses. In the 'real' world, the conflict carries over to the two houses, and even within Juliet's house between the bookish metaphysical father and the sexy 'psychologist- but touchy-feely' mother.

Welles was the one who reinvented the ordinary flat world of film into a melange of folding techniques. The film world since the late forties has been a combination of struggles and syntheses between the forth world of Welles and the simple dramatic stage of Griffith.

Even the very young Kate surfs and exploits these levels with aplomb. Even as a teenager she gives us messages from each of these folds - not at precisely the same time as Julianne would later, but strongly nonetheless.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.

In 1952 Christchurch, New Zealand, 14-year-old Pauline Yvonne Parker (Melanie Lynskey) is a bitter introverted student from an all-girls school. Juliet Marion Hulme (Kate Winslet) is the flamboyant new girl from England. Pauline forms a friendship with Juliet obsessed with their imaginary Fourth World. Juliet's parents abandon her in the hospital with TB. Pauline's mother becomes concerned about her rebellious turn and the girls' possible homosexuality.

These are two amazing performances. Lynskey is a wonderful weird introvert. The girls bring out the desperation of puberty coming-of-age. Director Peter Jackson brings out an interesting imaginary world. The movie brings out an early sign of wonder things to come.