Heaven
Tags: revenge, murder, romantic

Plot synopsis:
The film is set in Turin, Italy. 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, "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.Philippa is tracked down by the Carabinieri, 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 Carabinieri 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 Philippa and helps her escape from Carabinieri 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 Philippa's friends and finally consummate their relationship. When the authorities raid the house where they are hiding, the fugitives steal a Carabinieri 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.

Review: Throw in an odd romance, some spectacular Tuscan scenery (actually wonderful cinematography all the way through), a slow-moving but involving storyline and one of this generation's most-interesting actresses (Cate Blanchett) and you have a film worth investigating.A word of warning, especially to younger people: this film might be too slow for what you are used to seeing.
Subtitles also turn off a lot of people, and you need them here.As someone who just loves great visuals, this is an astonishing piece of work - just magnificent to view.
It stands as a good representation for the 'X Filme' project that Tom Tykwer co-heads, which aims to create films both new and thought-provoking as well as successful in their theater runs.At roughly an hour and a half, 'Heaven' is a cinematic triumph that nudges open the gates to the philosophy and psychology of the lone man or woman along with those of society on the whole.
The excellent performances of Giovanni Ribisi and Cate Blanchett (apart and together) should only be missed if you are mainly looking for external adventure and action.
That it's gorgeous, fascinating, and spell-like all in one is just part of the treat.I've seen other posters here complain that the direction of this film isn't in the tradition of "Three Colors" or other of Krzysztof Kieslowski's work; as if, because the story is based on one of his ideas, the follow-through had to be some sort of homage.
It's not just "acting," but the combination of unearthly beauty, top-tier cinematography, *and* her talent that makes this a level above Streep, Dench, Bergman, Hepburn, and any other great at their absolute best.I suppose it's hard to imagine the existence of a full level beyond what we consider--previously--to have been the most beautiful and artful female performance on screen.
I will not reveal with what exactly or how he helps her but the woman will have the chance to pay her dues on her own way.The story set in Italy (Blanchett and Ribisi speak perfectly Italian in the movie) is a beautiful, tragic and intelligent one.
First when you watch the DVD cover you see two superb actors as Giovanni Ribisi and Cate Blanchett (Both also in The Gift, that is a Raimi's excellent thriller) and also watch that is from Tykwer (specifically says "From the same director as Lola Renn"), you'll think that you are just ahead to watch an excellent movie.
The start of the movie show some action but 10 minutes later the story starts to slow down and to became into a fictional story that try to make you think that Phillipo is an Angel who born the same day and hour than Phillipa and that his destiny is to help (and also fall in love!) Phillipa to escape from the law because she killed 4 innocent people when she was trying to set a bomb to kill the drug dealer who supplied the drug to her exhusband who died for an overdoze (besides that she was unfaithful in her marriage)!!!!!!!!
lol.I enjoyed Lola Renn and the Color Trilogy, and i don't have anything bad to say about Blanchett or Ribisi, they have decent performs and the photography and locations are also good, but this story is not good at all!....
Teaming up Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi as the lovers must be one of the bigger mis-matches in film history.
Though the screenplay was written by the late director Krzysztof Kieslowski with his collaborator Krzysztof Piesiewicz and advances their common theme of the duality in human nature, the compelling visuals are purely those of director Tom Tykwer, who continues to cement his reputation as one of the most interesting European filmmakers working today.
Since his breakthrough, the hyper techno-driven `Lola rennt', Tykwer has been moving towards a more studied, balletic mise en scene and here his subdued combination of remarkable aerial photography (the cinematographer is Tykwer's gifted longtime colleague Frank Griebe using a Spacecam, a descendant of the Steadicam) and tempered, deliberate pacing provides the film with a gliding, effortless feel that gives you the sense you're in a dream.
Kieslowski's and Piesiewicz' oddball story has Cate Blanchett as a British schoolteacher in Italy plotting revenge on an industrialist she believes runs the drug cartel that caused her husband's fatal overdose; when her plan goes awry, killing innocents in the process, she's arrested but is helped to escape her interrogators by a police stenographer (well-played by Giovanni Ribisi) who has immediately fallen in love with her.
Part cautionary tale, chase film, mystery, with love and redemption, the film is emotionally moving and beautifully photographed, especially the ending with the helicopter ascending into the sky (heaven?).Mr. Tykwer scored a big hit in Germany with his previous "Run, Lola Run".
Later, when the main character played by Cate Blanchett learns she has hideously murdered four innocent people (including two children) instead of the drug kingpin she intended, she gives the only evidence of being an actress.
It is a great scene with a well controlled metamorphosis, and it is the only acting either main character does for the remainder of the movie.Both Blanchett and paramour Giavanni Ribisi seem oddly anesthetized for the rest of the picture.
It may appeal to some critics because they usually think that being bored and clueless is what it feels like to watch a good movie.Well, it's not.
They use outstanding cinematography and beautiful music combined with great acting to gently wrap around you and captivate you.Krzysztof Kieslowski's and Krzysztof Piesiewicz's script, along with Tom Tykwer's (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) direction formed a beautiful shell for Cate Blanchette's (Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I'm Not There, The Aviator) magic as a woman who killed four people by mistake and wanted to pay for her crime.Giovanni Ribisi (Saving Private Ryan, The Boiler Room) was quietly understated as the police officer who fell in love with her.Frank Griebe's camera work was impressive, and the music was wonderful, some of it performed by Tom Tykwer, the director..
Heaven will be the first installment which should also include, of course, Inferno and Purgatory.This film speaks to the redeeming power of love, and how it can allow forgiveness for even the most criminal of acts.
If you like movies that are thoughtful, and will reward a deeper look into their workings and meanings this can be a very rewarding film.
Is it possible to feel sympathy for a person who starts a film by killing four innocent people including two children?
In fact the main character, well played by Cate Blanchett, has good reasons for everything she does.Even if the tempo is slow, you will probably not feel bored, even if you're not interested in discussing ethics.
I am big fan of Kieslowski's late works, I admire Tykwer's "Lola rennt" but, sorry, "Heaven" is bad, simply bad.
Going in I had great expectations - Cate Blanchett is a favorite of mine, and I'm still impressed by Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run.
After the internationally successful movie Run Lola run,Tom Tykwer could have directed more cool movies.But for his credit,he decided to make new things.Heaven is another very interesting serious movie directed by Tykwer and he brings an intense and deep drama.Tykwer challenged all the clichés.Cate Blanchett is a great actress and,here,she brings a brilliant performance.Giovanni Ribisi is another great actor who surprised me on the brilliant film Suburbia.Here,he brings an excellent performance.Heaven is a very competent serious and adult movie showing a romantic relationship with an innovative vision and without cheap sentimentalism..
Also, what I love about this film is that even though the protagonists aren't the typical definition of "good", "pure", or "morally correct", I still found myself rooting for them to escape the police and for their love to blossom even more.This movie is full of magic and even after a year of viewing Heaven, it hasn't lost any of it.
Although the movie is subtitled, the audience feels as though they are missing vital elements of the story as most of the lines are delivered in Italian.It doesn't help that the movie actually feels like it is two separate short pieces melded together to make one feature length film.
With a poor script, boring soundtrack and a pedestrian plot, Heaven drags to an unsatisfying conclusion.Even fans of Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi (normally fine actors) should avoid this one..
The transition of moods is conveyed to us largely using silence and the picture we see on screen, so our two leads have to be expressive, and Blanchett in particular expertly generates empathy for her character, with minimal fuss.Coming to the experience of watching this film knowing as little about events as possible is vital, I think.
It is a sparse film, and has moments that require you to suspend your disbelief a bit too much (the communication written and taped between the officer and the woman is one thing I'm thinking of), but I find it to be a very compelling and human story, and the end is one of the most beautiful and perfect endings I have ever seen in a film.
i strongly suggest this film to anyone who is interested in near-perfect acting, tight direction, lovely cinematography, and a story that will pierce you..
Being a sympathetic soul to the work and tone of Kieslowski's films, and (more or less) liking Tykwer's Run Lola Run, I figured upon renting Heaven: "How bad could this be?".I'm not a Cate Blanchett fan, wasn't particularly in the mood for Hollywood romanticism, and feared I was about to see one of those mediocre spy/evil-establishment films that seemed so prevalent in the UK during the 80's.Pardon the clichÃ©, but from the first frame this film captured me.
This film was obviously under the complete control of perfectionist director (this time in the producers seat) Mr Anthony Minghella who I believe is yet to perfect his own talent but I'm sure in the years to come he will find it under the same rock that he found the script for "Heaven".
I don't actually think that a logic plot is so important, because this movie is not about something like that, it's about love and how people change when they feel it.
I think Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi are gorgeous in this movie, just look at their eyes and looks!
"How high can I fly", is the question Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi) asks during a helicopter flight simulation at the onset of Heaven, the latest film by Tom Tykwer, a question that does not become relevant until the end.
Together they formulate an escape that leads them to another act of revenge and finally into hiding in the Italian countryside where they become fugitives in the town of Montepulciano.The film then shifts from a gritty reality-based drama to a dream-like poem about lovers on the run.
As director Tom Tykwer put it, `The film (Heaven) is about redemption, basically the concept that love can help us find our true perspectives and our true meanings.
I'm only posting because the previous post is ridiculous.I'm a huge fan of Krzysztof Kieslowski's work, and I have enormous respect for Cate Blanchett and Tom Tykwer but this is a film that tries EXTREMELY hard to be something it is not.
Perhaps its a reaction against his work in Run Lola Run, but the pacing in this film is ponderous without the weight to justify it.From a technical point of view it is actually quite averagely shot (especially when you consider where it's shot) and I would have personally liked to strangle the crane operator.
You have to sense the impact the first half-hour makes on the viewer--getting hooked into the story of a woman who, in an effort to kill a drug dealer, accidentally blows away four innocent people.
With the help of Ribisi, she does manage to do exactly that.Strangely, the last twenty minutes of the film, instead of milking the situation for maximum suspense, comes to a lull in the Italian countryside and the plot is almost stagnant from that point on as if nobody knew how to end the tale.
Tykwer, who brought us such accomplished films as The Winter Sleepers and Run Lola Run, presents us with a love story that just doesn't work for me despite the excellent acting of Blanchett and Ribisi.
I guess "Heaven" is what is called an "art film." Released in 2002, it stars the incomparable Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi.
Directed by Tom Tykwer, it is written by Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, who intended to make a trilogy, "Heaven, Hell and Purgatory." There was one other film made, supposedly as part of this trilogy, called Nadzieja, which is Polish for Hope - so perhaps this movie is "Purgatory."A British teacher who lives in Turin, Italy, Philippa, loses her husband to a drug overdose.
It's simply a beautiful film, with a brilliant, spare performance by Cate Blanchett.
Cate Blanchett was awesome in this film, playing off of Giovanni Ribisi, who ain't chopped liver.
Come to think of it, considering Ribisi in his roles he's in the same boat.Heaven was a great film.
Although, this aspect is a mere sideline to the plot.The film is a superb story by Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz; directed by Tom Tykwer.
After watching it, I had to look up the director and was surprised to find it was the same guy who did "Run Lola Run."  I enjoyed that film too but "Heaven" was so different.
Quite a few people seem to think Tykwer's last 2 films (Heaven and The Princess and the Warrior) are pretentious, and I suppose I can see what they mean.
Cate Blanchett plays a bomber, doing the wrong thing for the right reason, and Giovanni Ribisi plays a sympathetic Italian cop who sees the good in her during the interrogation process.
It is obvious that this is an european film, showing typical german and polish influences (not surprising since the director Tom Tykwer is german and the writers were polish).Cate shows a great performance, Ribisi is good but limited by his character's unchanging expression.This is a film about emotions, about love and not about moral - that is very important to remember, otherwise it would be quite disappointing.I gave it a good 8, nearly 9.
Director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) brings to life the late Krzysztof Kieslowski's (The Decalogue Series) final script in this intense and romantic gem of a film.
They go through the movie without any big, cheesy love scenes, but one beautiful symbolic moment towards the end of the film.
Yes, I'm an avid fan of Kieslowski, Blanchett, and Tykwer...so yes it was written in the stars I would at least enjoy this film a little bit.
"Helicopter" is one of the very last words uttered before we cut to events so disturbingly compelling that we forget the opening.Like every Kieslowski film(waste no time on Tykwer except to admit he didn't ruin it, that this one feels Kieslowski), "Heaven" is fable, even parable.
Far from a plot-driven film, "Heaven" forces you to keep remembering that the heroine has killed four completely innocent people as a result of a poorly planned and executed attempt to assassinate a drug lord.
She does, brilliantly, and with the help of Giovanni Ribisi, playing a young caribinieri officer who (almost) falls in love with the prisoner the first time he sees her.The movie looks and sounds great.
Well that may be about the only humor coming from this starkly filmed story of a woman, Phillippa (Cate Blanchett) whose misplaced bomb doesn't kill the suave Turin drug czar whom she blames for her husband's OD death.
Ribisi is very good too but it's Blanchett's film start to finish.The enigmatic ending leaves viewers who care about the story with questions.
I had seen the director's previous work and also liked that - but this film has a life all it's own.
At times I was thinking "Yes, this scene is beautifully filmed, Kieslowski is indeed a genius" until I remembered that he was dead and Tykwer was directing.
An Overrated Movie With a Bad Screenplay and a Ridiculous End. Philippa (Cate Blanchett) is a British English teacher living in Italy, who kills four innocents persons when she planted a bomb with timer in the garbage can in the office of a drug dealer.
The screenplay has many flaws, and although having the presence of Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi and beautiful locations in Italy, this movie does not work.
German screenwriter and director Tom Tykwer's fifth feature film which was written by Polish filmmaker and screenwriter Krzysztof Kieslowski (1941-1996) and Polish screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz, is based on their trilogy "Heaven, Hell and Purgatory".
During interrogation, she learns that four innocent people were killed in the bombing and that she is believed to be a member of a terrorist organization.Subtly and precisely directed by German filmmaker Tom Tykwer, this finely tuned fictional tale which is narrated from the two main characters viewpoints, draws an eloquent portrayal of a young Italian policeman who falls in love and begins sympathizing with an imprisoned English woman.
This film is exactly what I expect from Tykwer: excellent story, beautiful characters, perfect cinematography.
I rented this because I had heard great things about one of director Tom Tykwer's other films, Lola Rennt, and I couldn't find that anywhere.
I'd rate it a 4/10 because of some nice photography work and Cate Blanchett, who does her best, but compared to his previous efforts, Tykwer's first non-German production lacks most of that what made "Run Lola Run" and "The Princess and the Warrior" so entertaining and intelligent..
After seeing this film I am sure of one thing Cate Blanchett is definitely 'the most underrated actor of our times'.The story deals with evils of our times- drugs, corruption, deception while at the same time touches upon the emotions of revenge,remorse and romance.