Product Details

• Actors: Marcos Hernández, Anapola Mushkadiz, Bertha Ruiz, Rosalinda Ramirez, Brenda Angulo
• Directors: Carlos Reygadas
• Producers: Jaime Romandia
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (DTS 5.1)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Mantarraya
• DVD Release Date: May 9, 2006
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000EZ8ZRG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,453 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Battle In Heaven" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Battle In Heaven, Carlos Reygadas’ follow-up to Japón, opens with a controversial oral sex scene involving beauty, Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), and the beast, Marcos (Marcos Hernández). Marcos is Ana’s chauffeur, who has kidnapped and accidentally killed a baby. Ana, a general’s daughter by day and a prostitute by night, confides in Marcos and performs sexual favors for him in order to persuade him to turn himself in. She is too young, however, to understand Marcos’s confused mental state, and her sensitive position with him puts her in peril. Set in Mexico City, this tragic drama is as much about failed intimacy as it is about Mexican class structure, as Ana and Marcos attempt to bridge the class gap. A few explicit sex scenes show Marcos in bed with Ana or his wife (Bertha Ruiz), thus garnering it reviews that compare it to The Brown Bunny. In fact, the slow pacing and artsy, self-consciously composed shots do remind one of The Brown Bunny, in that both films are initially interesting but grow dull as their plots take forever to unfold. An intriguing plot is buried under seemingly eternal panoramic shots of the city, painfully slow conversation between characters, and constant close-ups of Marcos’ face that are meant to capture his angst but only deter narrative. Nevertheless, this film’s merit is based in its experimental energy, and any director who follows up a graphic sex scene with a cut to the waving of the country’s flag (in this case Mexico’s) has my respect. --Trinie Dalton

Product Description

Marcos (Marcos Hernandez) is the middle-aged chauffeur of Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), daughter of a Mexican general who amuses herself by working as a prostitute in a high-end brothel. Marcos and his wife (Berta Ruiz) have kidnapped a baby for ransom but it went tragically wrong when the infant died. When he confesses his guilt to Ana, a bond of secrecy consecrated by the flesh unites them. As the police draw closer, she urges him to turn himself in but instead he seeks redemption from a higher power.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Seeing! April 10, 2006

By Andrew M. Elliott

Format:DVD

This is a really interesting film. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding it (because of certain scenes) which I'm hoping won't scare people off (somehow I don't think it will) but it really is one of those rare movies that gets you talking on so many different levels.

Carlos Reygadas (the director) has a very unique style, which you cannot help but appreciate. Some of the shots in the film are just amazing! Also, I really thought the lead actress, for someone who had never acted before, did a wonderful job! I still cannot decide on the lead male (who had also never acted professionally before) but honestly his performance did not hurt the film any.

What it's about: Basically a chauffeur and his wife kidnap a baby that dies in their care. The chafer confesses his secret to Ana, the daughter of a rich general, who works as a prostitute on the side, and who he drives to her "job." Carlos tries to find redemption through Ana, and ultimately falls in love with her.

It is a very intense film, but absolutely worth seeing, despite the graphic scenes and controversy.

63 of 79 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars gives "art films" a bad name January 28, 2007

By Roland E. Zwick

Format:DVD

Apparently people just aren't much into "faking it" anymore, even when it comes to sex in the movies. The Mexican film, "Battle in Heaven," opens with a graphic scene of a young woman performing oral sex on the main character - and we can clearly see that this is not a simulation (it's also not much of a stimulation given the man involved). I don't know if the various hardcore scenes were actually included in the movie when it played theatrically in the United States in 2006. But they are certainly in the video, and those easily offended by such activity had best be forewarned.

For me, the sex scenes themselves are not the problem. It is the movie as a whole that I object to. For "Battle in Heaven" is a pretentious, arty contrivance that seems to be operating under the assumption - quite rightly perhaps, since the movie ended up on quite a large number of ten best lists last year - that it can earn points with the critical intelligentsia if it can just manage to bore its audience into a state of complete catatonia.

It tells the desultory and languid tale of an overweight, middle-aged chauffeur who wanders in a zombie-like daze around Mexico City wracked with guilt over the fact that he and his wife recently kidnapped a child who ended up dying under their care. During the course of the film, Marcos (Marcos Hernandez) is able to shake himself out of his stupor long enough to have sex with his wife, sex with his boss' daughter and sex with himself while watching a soccer game. The movie is all about the struggle that is being perpetually waged within the Mexican soul between sex and temptation on the one hand and piety, guilt and the obsessive need for redemption on the other. And while this theme is certainly a valid one and is actually developed to some extent in the closing scenes of the drama, the movie itself is far too inert, far too easily sidetracked, and far too underdeveloped to capture our interest.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars World of Reygadas April 5, 2006

By Kippered Herring

Format:DVD

This is Carlos Reygada's second film, and his camera is ceaselessly searching. It investigates the transient murmuring of marching pilgrims, explores the ephemeral traffic of subway corridors, and paces itself to curiously follow the cadence of early morning flag raising ceremonies. It orbits around and inhabits the environment of Marcos, a protagonist so firmly planted to the earth that his crushing personal conflict is barely perceptable on his flaccid expression. Reygadas is desperate to discover the transcendence inaccessible to Marcos, whose only worldly absolve from his sense of shame is to be enveloped by something pure and beautiful - something that obsesses and corrupts him. It is one of the most impressive aesthetic feats in recent filmmaking: every scene (especially the gas station & soccer game sequences) is emotionally engaging. Ignore cries of "pornography" from detractors: there have been plenty of recent films to feature graphic sexual scenes, but Battle in Heaven is a incisive character study, not an empty exercise in exploitation.