Reseñas de la crítica

Presenting a characteristically uncompromising vision of human folly, Reygadas’s compelling second feature is also remarkably open to the possibility of redemption and grace.

The fact that it all may seem implausible or even unbelievable is why some people dismiss it, but the fact that Reygadas puts it all on-screen and holds my interest is good enough for me. Although I can't quite figure out everything that happens here, even with the assistance of the helpful interview, Reygadas' respect for all his characters kept the proceedings afloat and meanwhile kept me entranced.

Mr. Reygadas clearly wants to say something about his country, to tap into the spiritual and material desperation of its people, but he never finds a way into Marcos that makes you feel the filmmaker's genuine interest. And he stumbles badly by thinking that a shocking murder can tell us more about how we live and die than a man and woman trying to sell cheap goods to uninterested passers-by.

Whereas Reygadas' first film felt like the unadulterated expression of a raw and original artistic voice, his second bears all the markings of a movie made for a constituency, as if Reygadas had spent much of the time in between projects standing outside of himself, pondering, "What would Carlos Reygadas do for an encore?" Well, how about making a glib assault on Mexican national identity that is unrelentingly in-your-face in all the ways that Japon was enigmatic and subtle

Battle in Heaven, as ambitious as its title, is a living mystery, already notorious for hardcore-osity but so serious about its formal intelligence and so deep-dish in its evocations of inexpressible desolation, personal and social, that it occupies your skull like a siege of Huns.

Reygadas has a gift for weighty parallelism and Battle in Heaven not only comes with one but two sets of bookends: a pair of blowjobs. Early on, the Mexican flag is hoisted into the air; later, when Marco's fate has been sealed, the flag goes flaccid.