The Intelligence Estimate

Last night I saw "The Gates of Heaven" as part of The 41st Annual Chicago International Film Festival. The film is an early documentary from Errol Morris who won the Oscar for Best Documentary a few years ago for his film "The Fog of War." In this movie Morris interviews people involved in two pet cemetary businesses in California. One is forced to close down and the other thrives. But that is not really the point of the story.

The story is really about how people form attachments to pets but also let their attachments to people go to hell. The second pet cemetary (Bubbling Well Pet Cemetary) is run by the Harberts family. The two brothers, Danny and Phil, don't get along very well. Phil used to be in insurance but quit that to come back and work the cemetary. Phil speaks only in new age, management-speak catch-phrases. His younger brother Danny has been at the cemetary for 3 years, so he is in charge. This irks Phil a lot, a fact that he attempts to hide it under a thin veil of self-help colloquialisms.

The story also follows some pet owners as well. It is very interesting to hear them speak of their pets in such dramatically anthropomorphized terms.

The film is shot very simply. There are a lot of static shots, almost no tracking or panning at all. This works to give a tranquil feel to the entire film, very appropriate for a film about cemetaries.

I don't know if you can find this movie on VHS or DVD anywhere, but if you have a chance to see it I recommend it.