DAYS OF HEAVEN
Cert 12A
94 mins
BBFC advice: Contains moderate violence, language
I last watched Terrence Malick's compelling Days of Heaven in the early days of the everyfilm quest and after seeing his Tree Of Life.
Overall, I stick with my review, but I should have given greater emphasis to the fabulous score by Ennio Morricone and its lilting hook.
It is essential to creating its atmosphere.
I would also give it a 9/10 rather than the 8/10 I rated back then.
After Tree of Life, I had fears about spending 90 minutes with the re-release of a Terrence Malick classic.
To me, Tree of Life was, at best, whimsical nonsense and, at worst, a boring piffle.
Days of Heaven, which is 32 years old, is neither. It is a straightforward, well-acted story with stunning cinematography and a superb score.
And, while the camera occasionally lingers a little too long, it succeeds in gently evoking an atmosphere of foreboding.
It stars Richard Gere as a young hothead, Bill, who accidentally kills a foreman at a factory in Chicago and goes on the run with his lover Abby (Brooke Adams) and little sister (Linda Manz).
For a reason I couldn't fathom or simply missed, the lovers tell the world they are brother and sister.
Anyway, they wind up at a farm during harvest and work until all of the wheat is collected.
In the meantime, the wealthy farmer (Sam Shepard) falls in love with Abby and, believing her to be single, asks her to marry him.
Bill encourages the union because he understands that his boss is terminally ill and sees it as a chance for Abby to inherit his fortune.
However, suspicion starts to fall on them and the con becomes progressively more complicated and dangerous.
Gere is super in this role - moody one minute and like a raging bull the next, while Adams and Shepard are also in fine form.
Malick pulls off a neat trick by seeing much of the movie through a child's eyes, so Manz narrates much of it and is splendidly precocious on screen.
Days Of Heaven is everything that the Tree Of Life isn't. And, at a very brisk 94 minutes, it gets to its point at just the right time.
As I said, I'd not seen Days Of Heaven before, but now I've got a thirst for more of Malick's back catalogue.
Reasons to watch: Terrence Malick classic
Reasons to avoid: Slow in parts
Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 9/10
Did you know? Linda Manz died in 2020 at the age of 58 from lung cancer and pneumonia. . A GoFundMe page was set up by her son to pay for funeral expenses.
The final word. Brooke Adams: "I auditioned, I remember, with John Travolta, who was actually Terry’s first choice for the Richard Gere role. But John wasn’t allowed out of Welcome Back, Kotter at the time." The Film Stage
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