As It Is in Heaven

[Precious Doll]

I saw this last night as planned.

It's cliche on top of cliche piled on in this story of a renowned Swedish composer and condictor who has a physical (and mental?) breakdown, moves to a small village where he had spent some of his youth, andbegins to conduct the local church chore.

The usual stock characters are rolled out in this dysfunctional village: the town fat guy, bull, wife beater, slut, frustrated spinster, retard, fire and brimstone preacher, old woman with hearing aid who sings in the chore etc, merge together for the sort of story that' been seen a thousand times before.

Throwing in an unecessary 'cruelity to animal' scene (a hare in this case) doesn't help either.

Only Ingela Olsson as the preachers wife makes any impact. She has the most expresive of faces (I imagine that the would have been a ravishing beauty in her younger days) and the acting chops to use it effectively.

It's a crying shame that this film received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film of 2004, as this might have weighed against Sweden receiving another nomination for 2005 for a film that did deserve a nomination, Zozo, directed by Josef Fares.

Zozo is Fares third feature film. His first film Jalla Jalla received a fair degree of international acclaim and was a decent enough first effort from what I can remember. However his next film Cops which I absolutely hated (think Police Academy meets Supertroopers - only worse) was a huge hit in Sweden which probably enabled Fares to make the autobiographical Zozo.

Zozo is a somewhat tragic story of Fares journey from war torn Lebanon when a young child to starting a new life in Sweden. Some of it is quite harrowing. Young Imad Creidi who plays the title role is wonderful. One of the best child performances I have ever seen. Also impressive and no less moving are Carmen Lebbos as his mother and Elias Gergi and Yasmine Awad as his grandparents.

My recommendation is see As It Is in Heaven (I don't believe on eshould ever pit off seeing a film because someone else doesn't like it) but don't go out of your way or pay big bucks for a DVD.

And track down Zozo - not a great film but a worthy one with many memorable moments (even the talking baby chick worked).

As It Is in Heaven * out of *****
Zozo ***1/2 out of *****

[Precious Doll]

It's opening in my part of the world next week so I'm planning to see it Monday week.

[Movielover]

Anyone know when this is going to be released on DVD? Or has anyone seen it?

I'm looking forward to this one.