Foreign Movie Review: AS IT IS IN HEAVEN (2004) A

An unusual uplifting movie about PEOPLE.  Some you love, others like and others have serious emotional problems.  This movie lets you see many of them.

An internationally renowned Swedish conductor returns to his childhood village and agrees to help the local church choir hone their singing skills. The harder he works draws out the singers' hidden inner talents, the more he realizes just what he's been missing by living in his previous narrow world of just being a musician . . . period. Before long he's made new friends, and found a new love. A heartfelt tale of inspiration and discovery, As It Is In Heaven was Sweden's official submission for Best Foreign Film at the 2005 Academy Awards.

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOUR DEAD (2007) D

From an Irish wedding toast:
"May you live as long as you want,
And never want as long as you live.
May your glass be ever full.
May the roof over your head be always strong.
And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."

The last line of this toast says so much. It toasts the hypocrisy of certain guilt ridden cultures that can't deal with reality . . . and then compensate by joking about (or toasting) their misdeeds.

The church demands you be a good provider . . . and you flaunt it. The church demands you don't practice birth control . . . but you do. The church demands that you be subservient to your husband . . . and he beats you.

But this movie is not about hypocrisy. It's a formula movie about a family that goes a little astray. By little I mean, where son's kill parents and parents kill their children.

Unfortunately, from the first scene to the last I could not "get into it". It opens to sex (doggie style), to probably show lack of intimacy between the couple. The last scene shows a man walking into blinding light. The movie is as empty as the ending. The director helped me from getting emotionally involved by including, gratuitous sex, "artsy" lighting and multiple flashbacks that pulled me in and out of the story,

The characters were never fully formed, but we do know that they have standard human problems. Greed, lust, insecurity. The director and writers get a F- for trying to show that the children's emotional growth may have been stunted in childhood because their father, Albert Finney, could not express love and favored one kid over the others. GIVE ME A BREAK.

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN (2005) B+

Foreign, Swedish

This is a wonderful, moving film that tells the story of a famous conductor who returns to his very provincial hometown, where his musical talents opens the emotional world of many of the people he meets. Good acting but a little slow and somewhat predicable.

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN (2005) B+

Foreign, Swedish

This is a wonderful, moving film that tells the story of a famous conductor who returns to his very provincial hometown, where his musical talents opens the emotional world of many of the people he meets. Good acting but a little slow and somewhat predicable.