Blending the genres - fantasy/horror/crime movie
I (re)watched Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures last night. It is a strange but very convincing film about two teenage girls which end up murdering the one girl's mother. Both girls perform excellently. From my first viewing several years ago, I mostly remember a very intense and hectic Juliet Hulme, played by Kate Winslet. This time I was drawn to the constant oscillation between real life and fantasy scenery, very well made, and the convincing and playful/horrid rendering of the girls' shared fictional universe, populated with clay figures in the likeness of Mario Lanza, Orson Welles, James Mason etc. The universe is both stickily romantic and dark and scary at the same time. The film marks an interesting middle position between Jackson's earlier films which are really gross and disgusting (have you seen Meet the Feebles which imdb introduces with the tagline Hell has no fury like a hipo with a machine gun?) at the same time as you can see how Jackson could go on to make three films about Tolkien's Middleearth, this very elaborate fictional universe.

Aside, I was somewhat amazed when I discovered that it was Winslet herself singing in a short scene where she performs part of an aria from La Boheme (one of those scenes which again blurs reality and fantasy) - she has actually got a beautiful voice.

The film is based on a real murder case. And the library of Christchurch in New Zealand where it all took place has uploaded the text from all the original press clippings about it. And there is a picture of the girls too. Parker - Hulme Murder Case.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 12:29