HEAVENLY CREATURES @ 30

An antique travelogue short about Christchurch ends with a woman screaming. Two teenage girls run screaming out of the woods. Suddenly, they are running and screaming along the deck of a ship but now the screams are joyful. The two subjects of the fugue established, we are then treated to their development and interweaving as Peter Jackson presents his first feature that didn't have skull crushing zombies or vomiting aliens and looked like it was made for more than forty dollars New Zealand. But that's deceptive.

The true crime story of the Parker-Hume murder of 1953. This is not your average based-on-true-events sensationalism, though. It's a deep plunge into a dizzying folie a deux that will take us to distant realms while remaining always on the soil of the South Island. Movie idols mix with scone baking mums in a decidedly non-shire-like dry season New Zealand landscape. When it threatens to get too whimsical or cute, it's pelted with earthiness. When the mundanity might drag the story, we fly back into The Fourth World of Borovnia peopled by fairytale monarchs and peasants made of plasticine. It doesn't look like Brain Dead but this is exactly where Jackson's creative force had been leading him (along with life and creative partner Fran Walsh, should be said).

By this force we can easily accommodate the two threads entwining without contradiction. When the girls emerge from a screening of The Third Man they are chased through the alleys by Orson Welles (who is still in black and white). I recall thrilling to the moment the pair join in each other's vision as it blends while the scenery behind them blurs and twists like its in a paint mixer. When the scenes on board the cruise ship shock to sepia it is without clumsy noting. There is so little self-congratulation in this film's cinematic virtuosity from the time of Tarantino's barnstorming hits that revelled in their cool movieness. Everything we see here is crammed into the timeline and the story of the girls' love for each other, and all of it, for all the dazzling art of it, presents a lean and solid narrative; there's just no time for self congratulation. When Pauline and Juliet consummate and each assumes the appearance of one of their male idols, it's both thrilling and unsurprising. 

Melanie Lynskey as the dowdy Pauline delivers a highly nuanced teenager filled with rage against a world of bland winners and vapid losers. When Kate Winslet's Juliet makes her hell of an entrance into the French class, all poise, diction and self satisfaction, Pauline is switched into the new girl's current, from then it's when, not if. These roles were the screen debuts of both leads and without their clear chemistry the film would have been a long show reel with quirky wit. The performances are so committed that there are no creases in the transitions from adolescent rage to their shared ecstasy to the practical and ugly murder they commit.

Kate Winslet soared into the same kind of wide-ranging stratosphere that allows her her pick of roles and earns awards. She is considered a leader of her profession. Before you say well, what about Melanie Lynskey? go and look at her rap sheet on IMDB. It's not glittering prizes but it's serious and as cool as hell. Well, all that began here with a film whose decade radius includes The Quiet Earth, The Navigator, and The Ugly, all of which dazzle in their respective genres and none of which are alike. This is important for while Peter Jackson continued to own the gigantic end of the cinema screen, the power of his artistry lies in the individuality with which he and those other filmmakers began, each to each their own vision which has managed to endure. Heavenly Creatures calls to us as freshly now as it did in the '90s (which is more than I can say for Reservoir Dogs which just looks like the '90s pretending to be the '70s). This one's a keeper.

Viewing notes: I originally went to see this alone at a time when I got irritated at having to opine on a movie straight after I'd seen it. That's no longer an issue for me but it must have been then as I didn't start going to the movies with friends again until the end of the decade. Anyway, when I went to this at the late lamented Russell, there was an old couple behind me. The man was murmuring to the woman about the action on the screen and it got on my nerves. When the Humming Chorus swells up during a crucial scene and he began to hum along I very conspicuously put my fingers in my ears until he noticed and shut up. Now, I can understand that his partner was probably sight impaired and he was really just being loving. God, I was a prick.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find Heavenly Creatures on any of the local streamers, nor on disc. If you want to see it and don't already have a copy (like me) then you might have to buy it o'erseas. And Titanic never goes out of print!