I just have to applaud Yoda here, I would have lost my temper long ago. Please tell me you're on Prozac because your self-control is inhuman.
It's not easy being an admin.
"Ours is a high and lonely destiny..."
I've just seen the film, came here and couldn't stop laughing at every single post Bobby has made in this thread. If ever there was a time for Yoda's old OG quote, this is it. This is probably the best film Jackson has ever made, and it's quite hard to associate it with the generic drivel of King Kong. Why aren't movies as original as this anymore?
It's a little ironic to refer to a film based on real events and writings "original," but I agree that Jackson still manages to leave his mark here. He seems to have a penchant for infusing his style into other people's work without ever overwhelming the source material. I don't think I need to mention the other, more prominent example of his skill in this field.
The most impressive part, for me, was the use of voiceover. It obviously scores the film some serious accuracy points, seeing as how it came straight from Pauline's journal, and it wisely lets Pauline make her own case, lest the viewer feel that the film is defending her heinous acts. At least, that's my interpretation of it.
I've read Yoda's review a few pages back and found it astounding how anyone could be "undecided" after having seen such a brilliant piece of work,...forget the story outline, and just focus on the way it was shot. The way he incorporates the maniacal camera movements from his B slasher film days (I've only just now understood the irony of my earlier comment at Bobby) to accentuate their neuroticism and eventual lunacy (remember the skewed close up at Pauline's hate-filled face when she decides to kill her mother) and seamlessly combines the fantasy world with the real world is absolutely incredible.
Well, I'm "undecided" as to the central topic of the thread, which is whether or not the film is disturbing, or has a dubious message. But I certainly agree that the film is superb on a technical level. As I said earlier, the film's climatic murder was easily one of the most upsetting things I've ever seen in a film. That I can say that about a rather straightforward murder scene, and not about some shock-value grotesquerie, speaks to the film's technical brilliance.
And as for the story, it depends on your mind frame. I found nothing shocking about their relationship, on the contrary. They were, indeed, heavenly creatures...such an incredibly intense relationship transcends this world and all the rules of normality. In fact, I wish I was stark raving mad...:\
Ah, here we go our separate ways. I do not think they were heavenly, nor would I guess that we are meant to think so. I see the title as almost ironic; "Heavenly Creatures" is the phrase Pauline uses to describe the two of them, after all, and not Jackson's.
To me, it illustrates just how far gone she is; she'd have to believe that they were truly superior beings to justify such a murder. In that sense, it's rather like Hitchcock's
Rope, which is also about a couple of young people who believe themselves to be superior to others, and therefore outside of conventional rules of conduct and decency.
Was their relationship so transcendant? We don't really know. We know that Pauline certainly thought so, but she was a teenage girl at the time, and I wouldn't say people of that age have a stellar track record in emotional perspective. It's the deepest thing she's felt to that point, though, which leads her to make a common adolescent mistake: she assumes she's the only person who's ever felt this way before, and thus feels she can justify any action to preserve that feeling. Such love is a selfish love, and is directed inward at the void it fills, not outward to its alleged source.
I do not pretend to know exactly what Jackson thinks of what took place, but I think the emphasis on Pauline and Juliet's talents and intelligence is a lamentation on the life they threw away. We have lots of stories about desperate people doing desperate things, but these girls were not downtrodden. They were not born in a slum, or abused, or systemtically driven to the breaking point.
I see
Heavenly Creatures as a story about the lengths people will go to fill their emotional voids, and the cunning ability of the human mind to persuade even itself of anything in order to get what it wants.