SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

fluff-bomb Battle in Heaven is a difficult one to rate, and describe. It's like Marmite, you either love it or hate it. Or, it just confuses the hell out of you. Unfortunately I was subjected to the latter. Marcos, his wife and his son are a working class family who kidnap a baby for ransom money as they struggle to survive on an income derived from selling cake in a subway station and Marcos' long term security job for the local General and his daughter, Ana. There are some strange plot holes: You never find out precisely why the couple stole the baby, or why it died. Why does Ana cry when giving Marcos fellatio? How/why does Marcos spontaneously die at the altar after the pilgrimage? Why does Marcos leave the flat, wet himself, then return to stab Ana?However the film does redeem itself by some use of artistic cinematography. But it's hard to compliment much else for this film. The use of sex scenes help it achieve the 'art' feel but do not help to move forward the plot. The acting is amateur at best, poor use of expression makes it feel like one is watching robots perform. In conclusion it can be said that although this film captures the 'realism' of Mexico, it is supported by shoddy acting and a poorly written script which restricts plot development. I feel like this film is unfortunately a lot of wasted potential. 6/10

bikenavy I re-watched the film and I still liked it. The form is very forced to the point where it's borderline pretentious. But somehow, it's fun to watch and I except it. I'm really not sure why. I have problems with "Silent Light" but not this one. Maybe it's because the film is grounded on the rawness? It has some scenes that were shot on real streets with real events. So the pretentiousness blends well with the grittiness of reality? I like how the camera's movements, the cut and the use of sound are so mechanical. I also like how practically everything is symbolical. Everything is composed. Its pretension is so obvious that it's adorable. I can see how this film was conceived from a bunch of images in mind. It works like a comic book. "Post Tenebras Lux" is my favorite film of Raygadas. This one comes second.

edo deweert through a cinematographic stroke of genius, we are embarking on a trip through the roads of Mexico city in which we hang left and right in the turns the car takes. this is a story of unrequited love and one that shows that sex is not only the exclusive domain of the ashton kutchers and demi moores of this world. and sex is here committed the way most of us have sex\: naked, not under the covers and not with our bras and undies on. the film is inhabited by normal, everyday people, fat people, old people, crippled people. and who would have thought that fat people have sex??!! the sex in this film is not gratuitous. we all have sex in our lives, deal with it. but even though marco has sex with his larger than life wife, he dreams of having it with the young and beautiful daughter of the general he is assigned to drive to and fro. he has become fixated on her and dreams of a sex scene with her, though she has indicated she does not want any sex with him. thus he devises a plan to ensure that they "live happily after in sexual bliss"

hanzy_boy I don't disagree that this movie has great flaws. I mean the dialog could be more fluid, the editing could be more crisp, so on so forth.But while the movie is choppy as a whole, some of the scenes are breathtakingly raw. Like the part where Marcos is driving Ana from the airport, you can see, even almost smell, the city's absurd contrast between its economic classes. When Marcos is just staring into oblivion, you know you're looking at a real person, whose sweat is his own sweat and the grease on his face is his own grease.There is something mysterious and incomprehensible about the faces of every single person living and struggling in the city. It is not just a face of frustration, anguish, or despair, that a typical actor might give off.It's a face that is unique to that person, one that you will never get to know probably, but when you take a glance of in the subway or the bus or the sidewalk, you know somehow you relate to them, somehow you know there's a story behind them.This movie is just a mere glance of one person. It's not quite a study of Marcos, because we never got to be let in that deeply into his past, his motives, his whatever. It's simply presenting his situations and actions as they are, not pushing any particular perspectives the way most films do, not giving us any 'insights,' 'revealing monologues' or any of that.letting us simply be the judge of him if we are judgmental, the observer if we are observant, the aloof bystander if we are one, and most likely we're a little bit of every one of those types when watching this film.And that's very commendable for a film to let the viewers ultimately be the camera and the editor of the film. Instead of telling us how to view things.