Heaven (2002 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heaven

Directed by	Tom Tykwer
Produced by	Stefan Arndt, William Horberg
Written by	Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Starring	Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi
Editing by	Mathilde Bonnefoy
Distributed by	Miramax Films (USA)
Release date(s)	February 6, 2002
Running time	96 minutes
Language	English, Italian
Budget	US$11,000,000
IMDb profile

Heaven is a 2002 motion picture directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi. Co-screenwriter Krzysztof Kieślowski intended for it to be the first part of a trilogy (the second being L'Enfer and the third having been slated to be titled Purgatory), but died before he could complete the project.

The film does not follow a formulaic plot. Good and bad characters are not clearly separated. Poetic imagery and juxtaposition of events , landscape and symbols add to the film’s depth and complexity.

It is shot in the Italian language with short scenes in English.

[edit] Story

The film is set in an Italian city. It opens with a prologue sequence showing the young Italian Carabinieri clerk Filippo (Ribisi) learning to fly a helicopter using a flight simulator. When he accidentally crashes the virtual helicopter by ascending too dramatically, his instructor tells him that "In a real helicopter, you can't just keep going up and up," prompting Filippo to ask, "How high can you go?" The film then cuts to Phillipa (Blanchett), who is preparing to plant a bomb in the downtown office of a high-ranking businessman. Although everything goes according to her plan, the trash can in which she places the bomb is emptied by a janitor immediately after she leaves and later explodes in an elevator, killing four people.

Phillipa is tracked down by the police, arrested, and brought to the station where Filippo works. When she is questioned, she reveals that she is an English teacher at a local school where several students have recently died of drug-related causes. Discovering that they had all been supplied by the same local cartel, she had contacted the police with the names of the drug ring leaders, begging them to intervene, but was repeatedly ignored. At her wits' end, she decided to kill the leader of the cartel, the businessman whose office she targeted. In the process of her interrogation, Filippo (who is translating her confession for his superiors) falls in love with Phillipa and helps her escape from police custody. After she kills the drug lord who was her original target, the pair become fugitives from the law and flee to the countryside, where they eventually find refuge with one of Phillipa's friends. When the authorities raid the house where they are hiding, they steal a police helicopter parked on the front lawn and escape by air. The officers on the ground fire repeatedly at them to no avail as the craft climbs higher and higher and finally disappears.