Shooting from a script by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski (the writer-director of the "Three Colours" trilogy), director Tom Tykwer fashions this story about an Italian policeman who helps a female suspect escape custody into a curious meditation on themes of fate, justice, and chance.
The story follows unlikely assassin Philippa (Blanchett), who tries to kill an Italian drug dealer with a home-made bomb.
After the police apprehend her, and she realizes that her plan has gone disastrously awry, Philippa wins the love of policeman Filippo (Ribisi), who decides to help her escape.
Together they make their way into the Italian countryside, fully aware that their capture is inevitable.
With a storyline that strays beyond the limits of the believable, "Heaven" seems to take place in some annex of reality. As in "Wintersleepers", "Run Lola Run", and "The Princess and the Warrior", Tykwer delights in transforming the world we know into something different, unshackling his characters from the constraints and responses that govern everyday life and letting them roam through a universe where fate, coincidence, and chance dominate.
As Philippa and Filippo become fugitives together, they begin to mirror each other in more than just their names - shaving their heads, wearing identical clothes, and giving themselves up to the same fatalistic view ("I just want the end to come soon").
Blanchett and Ribisi's sympathetic performances hold the attention as the script moves towards its symbolic conclusion in which our heroes, who've ceased to believe in sense or justice in this world, make a desperate attempt to ascend to some unspecified 'heaven'.
The liberties that the script takes with believability and narrative sense will leave those expecting a straightforward thriller disappointed, but then, that was never the point.
The real joy here lies in Tykwer's technical virtuosity and the haunting, otherworldly quality of the script's obsessions.
Heaven (2002)
