Black Heaven

Praise Blue Velvet all you want, but you'll never hear me say it's a great movie. I think it's a good movie. Enter Black Heaven thirty years later, a little french movie that takes Lynch and goes Matrix with him. The result is intriguing to be sure in a kind of experimental way, well shot and scored, but in the end the movie is unable to surpass Lynch for two reasons. It feels too mannered and refined and it comes with a rushed finale.

Blue Velvet may have been ham fisted but Lynch was able to get some suspense and eroticism out of it. Black Heaven cools it down a little bit. On the positive side, we don't have to endure another Dennis Hopper 'attempt to steal the show' performance, but the movie kind of neglects to embrace what makes it different and potentially superior. Black Heaven, actually has something interesting going for it. Part of the movie plays out in a computer game, and there is the sense that Black Heaven could do something more exiting with the story, but it keeps everything neat and tidy, sometimes resorting to cheap measures. The movie ends way too soon. Just when it looks like Black Heaven might just turn up the heat, the game shuts down (so to speak) after a rather disappointing pay off.

Looking back, I'll say we have a curious and mystique little indie film, but it's not quite there.