• Official competition entry at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival
• German Film Prize (silver) 2002 for "Best Film"
• Nomination for Remo Girone at the German Film Prize 2002 as
"Best Supporting Male Role"
• Gilde Film Prize 2002 (gold)
• Golden Prize at the Gaia International Film Festival in Portugal
• Nomination for Best European Screenplay and Best European
Cinematography at the European Film Awards 2002
• "Special Mention for Excellence in Filmmaking" at the National Board of Review 2002
• German Film Critics’ Prize 2002 for Best Camera
• "Jupiter 2002" for Best German Direction

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”
Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Released only a few months after the atrocities of 9/11, Heaven confused (even appalled) many spectators with its opening sequence showing a young woman deliberately planting a bomb in a crowded skyscraper in Turin.  As time elapses, however – both since the film was made and during the running of the movie itself – Heaven may be seen as a complex, compelling study in vulnerability.  Cate Blanchett’s Philippa cannot quite grasp that a derisory accident of fate has led to her bomb killing not the corrupt businessman-cum-drug dealer she has targeted but four innocent people instead. As Tykwer has said in his commentary for the DVD, the explosion is “an internal wound, ripping the soul of this woman.” Unable to reconcile herself with her guilt, Philippa embarks on a flight away from the city, away from “reality”, into a spiritual state of mind induced by her burgeoning love for the carabiniere who has engineered her escape from jail.

The strength of the original screenplay by Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz stems from its constant flow of unexpected revelations and incidents.  Philippa and Filippo (their names suggesting their intimate kinship, the yin and the yang, the id and the ego) react instinctively to the twists and turns of the drama enveloping their lives.  Like Sissi and Bodo in The Princess and The Warrior, their initial exchange of glances seems to bypass any number of conventional meetings and dates.  Their complicity is their mainstay through the long process of evading the law and finding their particular “heaven”.

When they reach the Tuscan town of Montepulciano, they realise that they are condemned to eternal banishment from the orthodox world.  They watch a wedding in the town square, with its relaxed expression of joy, knowing they can never share such things, any more than they could enjoy plain, spontaneous sex of the kind they witness between a milkman and a shop-girl as they hide in a van in Turin.  Their eventual union assumes a more ritualistic character, as they stand naked together beneath a mighty tree that has a poetic charge of the kind one associates with the Taviani brothers.  And their final ascent into a redemptive sky provides the perfect riposte to the flying instructor in the opening sequence of the movie, when he tells Filippo, “In a real helicopter, you can’t just keep on flying higher.”  Filippo’s reply, “How high can you fly?” not only prefigures the conclusion of the film, but also underscores a perennial Tykwer theme – that at the right moment one must do what no one expects…

Once again, Tykwer’s lesser characters assume a rich and distinctive profile. Filippo’s father, for instance, a dignified career cop who recognises his son’s destiny and commits all the love he can muster into a final embrace.  Or Philippa’s old friend Regina, who expresses the shock and confusion of us, the audience, as she suddenly encounters the fugitives in Montepulciano and yet gives them food and shelter almost without hesitation.  Or even the villain of the piece, Vendice, who is shot dead by Philippa; glimpsed for only a few seconds in toto, he gives off an arrogant, callous air that reveals his contempt for those around him.

This does not detract from the extraordinary performances of Cate Blanchett as Philippa and Giovanni Ribisi as her alter ego, Filippo.  Philippa’s susceptibility is communicated with small, discreet gestures, as when she touches the wood of the door-frame for luck as she leaves her apartment carrying the bomb. As her interpreter during the police interrogation, Filippo identifies increasingly with this confused, perplexed woman.  Ribisi’s childlike features express Filippo’s gradual realisation that the carabinieri, the legal institution for which he and his father work, may be corrupt.

Tykwer’s personality runs like a watermark throughout Heaven. The subtle choice of locations governs the tone of the film, from the mysterious attic where the fugitives enjoy a charmed sanctuary, to the noble church of San Biaggio in Montepulciano where Filippo’s father bids farewell to his son. Tykwer’s use of close-ups has never been so assured, so revealing. He and his  cinematographer Frank Griebe set the faces slightly off-centre, so that they seem to possess an existence beyond the frame. As the director has noted, “The film is really ruled by looks and glances.” Appearances are deceptive: dark glasses obscure the true face of first Filippo, as he steers his helicopter in the simulator, and then Philippa, as she travels through Turin on her deadly mission. In another typical Tykwer touch, the gigantic clock-face reflected through the skylight of the attic, suggests an infernal circle in which Philippa and Filippo are trapped, while time ticks inexorably forward and coerces them into taking risks and finding solutions.

Like many other Tykwer characters, these unlikely lovers bear the scars of emotional loss.  Philippa confesses that she was in the process of getting a divorce when her husband died, while Filippo seems to have no mother, even if his younger brother Ariel is as close to his father as he is. In an impulsive but fruitless attempt at disguise, they have their heads shaved. The effect is to give them the appearance of spiritual twins, and confirms their childlike naïveté. Only now can they accept the notion of Utopia that beckons so alluringly as the authorities close in.

The suspense inherent in the original screenplay -- although re-written in various forms prior to shooting in English and Italian -- overcomes any faint whiff of implausibility in the plot (could Philippa really have learned bomb-making techniques with such skill?  Surely the police headquarters would have been searched more thoroughly?). Once again, the editing of Mathilde Bonnefoy contributes enormously to the fluent, seamless progression of the film, and blends the gripping realism of the early scenes with the dreamlike journey into the heart of Tuscany. The “space cam” technique, already used to such brilliant effect in The Princess and the Warrior, enhances the ethereal nature of this flight from reality. So too does the eerie music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, which plays a similarly portal role to Ligeti’s piano refrain in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.  As always in Tykwer’s world, intervals of silence can be as eloquent as any amount of music or sound effects.