Backbencher
Weblog for HIST 381 at NDSUSunday, January 27, 2008
Film Review: Heavenly Creatures
Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures is a preview of things to come for his career. The film, which falls between the splatter-fest Braindead (Dead Alive in the US) and the Michael J. Fox feature The Frighteners, is possibly Jackson's best work. The story is that of two teenage girls--Pauline and Juliet--who form an obsessive bond with one another. These girls create a fantasy world which eventually goes beyond the realm of their imaginations and becomes a shared hallucination. The girls are forcibly separated when one set of parents begins to worry about a possible lesbian relationship, which leads to the concoction and enacting of a terrible plan.
Everything about this film is great; from the performances by Kate Winslet (Juliet) and Melanie Lynskey (Pauline) to the phenomenal visual effects, the picture is top notch. I love films based on actual events, so this sort of movie appeals to me anyway--but Heavenly Creatures has been a favorite of mine for some time, so I was glad to view it again. Peter Jackson (watch for him as the drunken bum getting kissed by Kate Winslet!) is a master and this is his first film in which he is at the top of his game. The mood is built slowly and deliberately, and you know something bad is going to happen--you just don't know when. This eerie feeling is bolstered by the haunting score, which does not relent throughout the picture. Like any film shot in New Zealand, the backgrounds are amazing and the cinematography truly captures the grandeur of the environment. The primary sources used for the picture are the actual diary entries of one of the girls (Pauline) which really adds to the authenticity of the adaptation. A great movie by one of the modern masters of cinema.
Everything about this film is great; from the performances by Kate Winslet (Juliet) and Melanie Lynskey (Pauline) to the phenomenal visual effects, the picture is top notch. I love films based on actual events, so this sort of movie appeals to me anyway--but Heavenly Creatures has been a favorite of mine for some time, so I was glad to view it again. Peter Jackson (watch for him as the drunken bum getting kissed by Kate Winslet!) is a master and this is his first film in which he is at the top of his game. The mood is built slowly and deliberately, and you know something bad is going to happen--you just don't know when. This eerie feeling is bolstered by the haunting score, which does not relent throughout the picture. Like any film shot in New Zealand, the backgrounds are amazing and the cinematography truly captures the grandeur of the environment. The primary sources used for the picture are the actual diary entries of one of the girls (Pauline) which really adds to the authenticity of the adaptation. A great movie by one of the modern masters of cinema.
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