Heaven

Directed by Scott Reynolds

Script by Scott Reynolds, based on the novel by Chad Taylor

105 minutes, 1998.

Martin Donovan plays Robert Marling

Danny Edwards plays Heaven

Richard Schiff plays Stanner

Joanna Going plays Jennifer Marling

Patrick Malahide plays Melrose

Karl Urban plays Sweeper

Country of finance: US/NZ

Nationality of director: New Zealand

Location of story: implicitly New Zealand

Filming location: New Zealand.

Synopsis

Robert and Jennifer Marling are a US couple, living in New Zealand, who have now separated because of his gambling addiction and her greed. Robert is a down-and-out architect with only one client, Stanner, the crooked owner of the nightclub, Paradise. The star turn at Paradise is Heaven, a former street transy whom Stanner has employed in his nightclub. This is partly, perhaps mainly, because Heaven (no other name is given for her) is psychic, and gives him hints of what to play in poker. Heaven also sees images of a coming slaughter. Both Robert and Heaven are seeing the same psychiatrist, Dr Melrose, who just happens to be having an affair with Jennifer, and tells her that Robert is coming into money, because Heaven has foreseen it. After Heaven rescues Robert after he had been robbed while drunk, she adopts him giving the poker advice that she had previously given to Stanner, because she has seen that he will rescue her from a much worse situation. Heaven’s friend Sweeper works as doorman/bouncer at the club, until he is fired for refusing entry to two obvious thugs (whom Stanner employs to burn down the club). The two thugs make a pass at Heaven, and chase her, but end up being the ones who rob Robert. Heaven steals Stanner’s money and flees to Robert. Stanner gets it back and kidnaps her and ties her up. The two thugs murder Stanner and all the other club dancers, but kidnap Heaven to rape her. Robert interrupts the rape, but is being defeated by the thugs when Sweeper saves him and Heaven. Heaven and Sweeper take the money, give some of it to Robert, and then go off together.

Curiosities

New Zealanders, of course, drive on the left. Jennifer and Melrose both have cars with the driving wheel on the left (to drive on the right). Perhaps Jennifer brought hers from the States when she immigrated.

Paradise is a girly bar that attracts a male clientele. One would expect that the dancers would strip. But they don’t seem to.

Of course a real-life trans woman was not offered the part of Heaven. Nor is it made clear that she is in transition. However it is clear that she lives female full time.

Dr Melrose makes a pass at her, and then rejects her as ‘disgusting’. This is acceptable as it is part of establishing that he is a creep.

The two thugs early on chase Heaven presumably with the intention of rape. When they burn down the club, they murder all the cis women, and take only Heaven away and start raping her (until she is rescued). There is no scene where they discover that she has an optional extra, so presumably they knew before that she is a trans woman. It is unlikely that two criminal partners are both transy-chasers. This aspect is not developed in the script.

The film is non-linear to cope with Heaven’s psychic abilities. Until the end we do not really know what happened earlier.

Who is Danny Edwards?

Edwards is a British actor. Here is his IMDB page. He played a drag queen in La Lengua asesina, 1996, and then Sherrie, a transy hooker in the Granada Television series Gold/Band of Gold, 1997-8.

After Heaven, he has been playing blokey parts. Perhaps he thinks that he is getting too old to play transy parts unless he takes hormones.

Many films with transsexuals are unrealistic in that the trans woman is just too beautiful. Edward’s Heaven is plausible. She is pretty enough to work in a sleazy nightclub, but no more so than an average woman.

*not the US golfer, nor the sculptor, nor the Port Vale footballer, nor the NASCAR racer.

Who is Scott Reynolds?

Reynolds is a New Zealand film director who has made four films. He has attracted some good reviews. Here is his IMDB page.

Conclusion

At the end, Heaven still has the stolen money (minus the portion that she gives to Robert) and goes off with Sweeper who turns out to love her.

She gets the money and the man.

Neat.

Madame Sesostris

The character, Mr Scogan appeared in Aldous Huxley's first novel, Chrome Yellow, a 'roman à clef' published in 1921. Mr Scogan appeared at the village fair as Madame Sesostris, 'the Sorceress of Ecbatana'. In this role he read palms and tried to set up selected female clients for seduction.

It is generally agreed among critics that Mr Scogan is based on the philosopher and womanizer, Bertrand Russell.

The very same year, T.S. Eliot, in his much to be discussed poem The Waste Land, used the character (with a slight spelling change, and perhaps influenced by the fact that Russell had had an affair with his wife Vivienne) to give a tarot reading anticipating the rest of the poem:

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor ...

P.Lal, the Indian poet, renders homage in 1960:

All that they knew.  In Sly hieroglyph
Floating on time’s gauze, Psammetichus
Carved more than carvers of the carious cliff …
Ask the wild sea.  It is all on the rock.
But Cheops sleeps: he has not heard of birth.
And Sesostris: he has not heard of death.

In episode 2.8 of the television series, Witchblade, Roger Daltrey of the Who, plays a priest who has a second persona as Madame Sesostris.

'Sesostris' is the name of three twelfth dynasty Egyptian pharaohs, and another pharoah whom Herodotus tells of as invading Europe. Ecbatana is in Iran. To conflate the two is an example of orientalism, the Western custom of projecting fantasies upon the East, a custom that often features cross-dressing.  This is the kind of thing that Marjorie Garber discusses in Vested Interests, 1992, although she did not use this particular example.

• Aldous Huxley.  Crome Yellow.  A Triad Grafton Book.  1977 (original 1921):  chp XXVII.
• T.S. Eliot. The Waste Land in The Complete Poems and Plays, 1901-1950.  Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.  1971: line 43-59.
• Grover Smith.  The Waste Land.  George Allen & Unwin. 1983: 67-8.
• Calvin Bedient.  He Do the Police in Different Voices: The Waste Land and Its protagonist.  The University of Chicago Press. 1986: 52,55.