THE DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN

Holland, 2001, 134 minutes, Colour
Stephen Fry, Greg Wise, Flora Montgomery, Diana Quick, Neil Newborn, Maureen Lippman, Emma Fielding, Jeroen Krabbe.
Directed by Jeroen Krabbe.

The Discovery of Heaven is a film by Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe who had also made the film Left Luggage with Isabella Rossellini.

Krabbe had been an effective actor in his native Holland in some Paul Verhoeven films including The Fourth Man. He had a very successful career in Hollywood ranging from roles in The Prince of Tides and as Satan in the television movie Jesus as well as such oddball films as Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo.

This film is based on a Dutch novel by Harry Mulisch. It was made in English, mainly with a British cast led by Stephen Fry, Greg Wise and includes such performers as Maureen Lipman. The original book is nine hundred pages and covers an extraordinary scope, even in history from the 1930s through the Jewish persecutions and the concentration camps into the 50s and 60s. However, the film as with the book is philosophical, scientific and religious, the combination of all three. It posits a world in which religion and the Ten Commandments are not observed but there is a reliance on science and philosophy. God and his angels decide to do something about this state of human affairs – creating a child who will be able to bring back a better state of existence for human beings.

The screenplay is a mixture of narrative, discussion, mysticism, fantasy. Whether it all comes together depends on one’s tolerance of fantasy and speculation. The film would appeal more to the sensibilities of continental Europe, with its interest in reflective thought and abstraction rather than to the pragmatic tradition from the English language countries. However, it is an interesting experiment – and intellectually and emotionally challenging at times.

1. An ambitious film in scope and theme? A perspective on the state of the world at the end of the 20th century? A pessimistic approach?

2. The widescreen photography, Dutch locations, Israel, Cuba? The musical score? The religious dimensions to the score as well as the contemporary, secular melodies?

3. The title, the picture of Heaven, dark, staircases, a negative perspective?

4. The premise that God has lost faith in the world, wants the Ten Commandments returned? The inability of the angels to come to earth to reclaim the commandments?

5. The portrait of the angels, their dress, solemnity, Gabriel, the female angel head of the council, the young angel concerned about the humans? The providence of the angels, the control of people's lives? Issues of freedom of choice for humans or lack of freedom? The destructive and cruel decisions of the angels?

6. The angels' plan, the preparation of the genes, the special child who will achieve the mission, the special mother? The issue of why there should be two fathers? The organisation of the meeting of the two men, their friendship, their meeting Ada, both in love with her, their relationships? The ambiguity of the paternity of the son?

7. Stephen Fry as Onno, the archetypically English actor as a Dutchman? Credible or not? The quality of his performance, screen presence? Seeing him within the family context, his father and his political background, the relations? Onno and his being a mischief-maker? Acting with silly behaviour? His work on translations of ancient texts? His character, social status? The chance encounter with Max, their comparing notes, the same conception night, the burning of the Reichstag? Sharing friendship, sharing interests? The encounter with Ada, the bookshop, her playing the cello, her mother and father? Each falling in love with her? Her choices? The decision to marry Onno? The visit to Cuba, the sexual encounter with each of them?

8. Max as a scientist, more genial than Onno, the meeting with Onno, the crash arranged by the angels, their sharing the repairs, interests, talking? Max and his astronomy and the desire to discover Heaven? Their shared experiences, the chance meeting with Ada, Max's relationship with her, not faithful to her, her leaving him, the visit to Cuba, the encounter on the beach? His being Quinten's father?

9. The social stances of Onno, his politics? Going to the demonstration and ridiculing the speaker? Meeting him again in Cuba, the speaker getting money out of the exchange, hiding in the hall? The photos taken and Onno and Ada holding the gun? The atmosphere of the late '60s and socialism, communism in Cuba? The consequences with the photo for Onno's career?

10. Ada, her relationship with her parents, playing the cello? Vivacious, in love with each of the men? The marriage to Onno, her sexual relationship with each of them? Her pregnancy? The presumption that Onno was the father?

11. The pregnancy, the difficulty of the birth? Onno and his grief? Ada going into coma, the continued care? Onno and his decision to follow politics, his work? The line-up of all the relations and their all offering to take the boy? Max and his offering, Max and his relationship with Ada's mother, the sexual encounter, their adopting the boy? Raising him? The life for Quinten as he was growing up, a precocious child, his eyes, his destiny? Growing older, study, ambitions? His seeing visions, a sense of people's deaths? His sense of Max's death? Max, the dishes at the observatory? His feeling that he was discovering Heaven, his ignoring the phone call, the meteor and Quentin seeing his stepfather die?

12. Onno and his decision to disappear, the political compromise? His not knowing that Max was killed?

13. Quinten and his desire to go on a journey, his further sense of destiny, going to Rome, at the Pantheon, seeing his father? Their meeting, the discussions? Going to St John Lateran, the Santa Scala, the pilgrims, the Holy of Holies? The research about the Ark of the Covenant (and the screenplay's error about the Ark of the Covenant disappearing at the time of Titus rather than with the Babylonian captivity)? The visit to Jerusalem? The tour of Jerusalem, the rock, the place for the tablets of stone? The plan to return them? Quinten having a vision that his father would die? The rock and Quinten's returning the tablets? His vision of his mother? His achievement?

14. The dangers, the completion of the task, the angel wanting to go to earth to rescue the humans - and the others telling him that he could never return to Heaven?

15. How credible was the screenplay, an allegory of the human condition and its relationship with God in the 20th century, the place of God, Providence? The rationalist perspective on the events? The screenplay combining ironic and wisecracking comments along with the serious? Could the film be described as truly religious?