I caught one movie on Channel 5 while surfing the TV randomly. I was mainly attracted by the fact that Cate Blanchett was in it. The title was Heaven.



Unfortunately, I missed the first part of the movie and was only able to deduce what I have missed from the dialogue. Still, it was good enough to keep my interest in the movie despite the late hours. Was intrigued especially by the part where the Italian policeman/translator helped Blanchett's character (Philippa) despite the grave consequences; and despite the fact that Phillippa didn't even know the man's name apart from the fact that he has been translating her statements from English to Italian during the dark days where she was interrogated relentlessly. The ploy to help Phillippa out of pure love was so simple but thoughtful, and the unspoken chemistry between the two was delicately crafted out.

While there appeared to be some plot-holes in the story (which I guess could also be due to the lack of subtitles and censoring by Channel 5), the characters were intriguing, nevertheless. In fact, the whole look of the film had a nice European quality to it - simple, yet elegant. Very beautifully filmed and well-paced.

Unfortunately, again, I really couldn't stay up till the end of the movie... :( It was 2.00am by that time and I really couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Why can't Ch 5 show such good movies at earlier time slots???

Hoping I can find this movie at rental shops now so that I can watch the whole thing in its entirety sans the sleepiness, commerical interruptions and censored portions.

By the way, some trivia... This was the first time I realized just how similar Italian language and Spanish language can be! In fact, it was so similiar that to an amateur like me, I had a very hard time finguring out whether the language spoken was Spanish or Italian (since I had missed the first part of the movie and didn't know where this was set)!

Also, I thought that the male lead who speaks fluent Italian and accented English was a real native Italian. Turns out that actor Giovanni Ribisi is actually an American, though he is of direct Italian descent. In fact, I later found out that I had actually seen him in a number of other movies including Saving Private Ryan as the ill-fated medic (who can forget that tragic death scene!), and as Dex, the gadgetry wizard in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Well, he does a mean Italian-accented English!