HEAVEN'S BURNING (1997)
A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
People who find themselves in desperate situations often discover that what they thought to be desperate situation is nothing compared with what life has in store of them. This is something that happens to the protagonists of HEAVEN'S BURNING, 1997 Australian drama directed by Craig Laihiff. Midori (played by Youki Kudoh) is a young Japanese woman stuck in loveless arranged marriage to Yukio (played by Kenji Isomura). During the honeymoon trip to Australia Midori decides to leave her husband and start new life. After aimless wandering through the streets of Adelaide she ends up in bank. In that particular moment the bank is hit by a gang of Afghan criminals who mess up royally and have to take a hostage. Midori serves that purpose and after successful getaway she is to be killed. Colin (played by Russell Crowe), gang's Australian getaway driver comes to her rescue, kills one of his confederates in the process. Colin and Midori begin their long escape through Australia, being pursued by police and vengeful Afghans. In the meantime, Yukio discovers that her wife's plight wasn't accident and, being publicly disgraced, succumbs to murderous desire for revenge.
Scriptwriter Luis Nowra adds couple of interesting variations to the ancient theme of two lovers on the run. First of all, HEAVEN'S BURNING is a genre combination of road movie, melodrama and black comedy. To make things even more interesting, the cast of characters is more ethnically and culturally diverse than we have been accustomed, especially in Australian films. Director Craig Laihiff successfully deals with the linguistic problems and prevents cultural clash to take over the story. In an attempt to avoid cliches, Laihiff also allowed the film's characters to use language which is at times not "politically correct" (which later led to controversies and accusations of racism and stereotyping). The biggest problem of HEAVEN'S BURNING was the lack of balance between black comedy and melodramatic pathos - at times film is too silly to be taken seriously, while in the same time too violent to be funny. On the other hand, the acting is very good and Youki Kudoh easily outshines her partner Russell Crowe. That can't be said for Kenji Isomura whose transformation from bland businessman to raving lunatic isn't very convincing. However, despite those flaws, HEAVEN'S BURNING is very interesting film that shows that Australian cinema still has the potential for bringing something new and original to the audience.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
Review written on March 24th 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian http://www.ofcs.org - Online Films Critics Society
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