"That's a nice-a donut."

Friday, August 19, 2005


Gates of Heaven (1978)

Documentarian Errol Morris' first feature film Gates of Heaven has been closely linked to both great German director Werner Herzog and film critic Roger Ebert (more on these later). This is a simple story really. The movie is basically in two halves; the first focuses on a failed pet cemetery in Los Altos, California and the second on a successful pet cemetery in the Napa Valley.

The Los Altos portion of the story is intercut with interviews with the cemetery founder and other investors, a couple pet mourners, and a cold, unsympathetic owner of the enemy: the local animal rendering plant. The primary focus is on a hopeless old man who started the place, driven by a love of animals. The problem was that neither he nor the other investors had much in the way of good business planning or foresight. For instance, he talks glowingly about the perfect location that he found for the cemetery, and then it is ironically revealed that it is really at the intersection of two main highways and the view isn't that great at all.

The second act in Gates of Heaven concentrates on a family-run cemetery in a picturesque area of the Napa Valley. The father, who founded the Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park, seems like a sincere man who cares for pets and shares the concerns of the people who lost them, but also knows that a dollar can be made from it. He has aspirations of having the best pet cemetery in the country. Both of his sons hope to one day run the place, but they are quite different, to put it lightly. One son is in it for the money, he is self-absorbed and is always giving motivational speeches, showing off his trophies, and talking about his former career as an insurance salesman. The other son is a slacker, playing rock music with his electric guitar, waiting to realize his life dream, growing marijuana plants in his room, and generally being a hippie.

An interesting dichotomy is made between the mourners (the pet caregivers) and the cemetery owners. The owners are there to do a job (and to try to make some money out of it), but must balance this with the needs of the dedicated people who are very sad and need closure for their lost family members. Some of the better moments in the film are when the grievers are talking about their beloved pets, though one of the best remarks was made by the downtrodden founder of the Los Altos plot who said that pets are on Earth for two reasons: "to love and to be loved."

The people are the story of this movie; not pets or pet cemeteries. These people are wacky and eccentric, and a movie could probably be made about each of them individually. The people are somewhat interesting and there is high comedy in some of the things that are said, but the parts of the movie are too jambled together. I half-expected to see some random person (like perhaps a waitress in a restaurant from a couple miles down the road) meander on about some subject wholly unrelated to pets. In fact, a very strange, awkward and overlong transition between the two halves of the film involves the tale of a senile old woman. She begins discussing the Los Altos pet cemetery and then proceeds to ramble on about anything and everything, including her son. It has nothing to do with pet cemeteries, and only serves to show the oddity of these people.

I can't say I enjoyed this as much as some people, including Roger Ebert who has anointed the movie one of his ten greatest of all-time. The movie is somewhat unfocused and Morris clearly hadn't yet learned when to cut away from an interview - some are way too long and rather boring. Some editing was needed, and things could have been improved with more stories from the grieving pet people. But certainly much can be appreciated about it. What is it - a tongue-in-cheek comedy? A serious case study? Does Morris have sympathy for these poor people, or is he making fun of them? Whatever the case may be, the movie is an interesting and generally original take on human life and the attachments we have with our furry friends.

...So what does Werner Herzog (director of the recent documentary Grizzly Man) have to do with all this? Well, Morris was a struggling young filmmaker and a friend of Herzog's. I'm sure there are different versions of exactly what was said, but Herzog promised that he would eat his shoe if Morris completed a film. Of course, he did complete a film (and many more after this) and Herzog ate a shoe at the Berkeley premiere of Gates of Heaven, boiled and garnished with garlic and hot sauce.

The Verdict: B-.

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