Film Review #2 - “BLACK HEAVEN”

Director: Gilles Marchand

Run Time: 100 minutes

Cast: Louise Bourgoin, Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet, Melvil Poupaud

Language: French

When the black and white distinction between online video games and reality blends to gray, the internet can easily become a weapon of destruction. As the internet becomes the primary means of interaction between people all over the world, who is to say that the person on the other end is really who he claims to be? At what point does the internet cease being an engine for creativity and empowerment, but rather becomes a tool for destruction? Destruction not only as a weapon wielded against others, but also against oneself? I loved “Black Heaven” because its enlightening commentary on the dangers of obsessive internet use (specifically gaming) addressed these questions with great beauty, insight, and effectiveness.

“Black Heaven” opens by introducing us to a young couple in love as they swim and frolic with friends along the beach on one summer afternoon. When the young lovers venture away from their friends to spend some more intimate time together, they hide in a bathroom stall where they find the ringing black cell phone that sets the whole plot into motion. As the movie progresses, we find out that the phone belongs to a young, seductive blond woman named Audrey. Though beautiful and charming, Audrey is hiding a dark secret. Under the influence of her brother, she lures males into her bed through an online video game called “Black Hole.” Often times it is actually her brother these men are talking to instead of Audrey, but once they meet the beautiful blond she either talks them into committing suicide or her brother kills them himself. The targets are chosen by her brother for their vulnerability, low self-esteem, and suicidal thoughts that eventually show themselves in the course of the victim’s relationship with Audrey.

Though tragic and murderous, this plot actually started out in a somewhat noble attempt by Audrey’s brother to prevent the “creepy, suicidal type” guys from stalking and influencing his sister via the “Black Hole” game. However, his protectiveness soon turned sadistic when Audrey’s brother jokingly suggested one such “creepy” guy to end it all and jump off a bridge. Then the man actually did it. From then on Audrey’s brother seemed to revel in the power, and began the game that is the plot of this movie.

My first thought after seeing the movie was, “oh my gosh, the internet is a terrible thing!” But upon reflection I realized that, like some other inventions, the internet is merely a tool whose impact depends on the user. In “Black Heaven,” it was Audrey’s brother that murdered these men, not the internet. Indeed the lines blurred by the internet open up greater opportunity for misuse and abuse, but the real culprit is us. It is the people who choose to use the internet to destroy lives or tarnish reputations that are evil, not the internet itself. In fact, the internet can be used for tremendous good for everything from charity fundraising (UGA Miracle) to business promotion and selling (Amazon.com or any other business) to education and literacy (ugalibs.uga.edu or thomas.gov).

Moreover, I believe that the director of the movie understands this concept of user responsibility. That is why they portrayed the brother in the cruel light he deserved. However, Marchand was also wise in making us aware of the internet’s potential for facilitating dangerous and destructive behavior. For instance, a great general always knows his army’s weak points and predicts his struggles so that he can combat them more effectively. In the same way we must know the potential dangers of the internet and how it can appeal to our weaknesses. Thus “Black Heaven” does society a great service by pointing out our own weak points as well as the conditions the internet creates which may prey upon our weaknesses and cause us do things we otherwise would not.

The three major aspects of the internet which “Black Heaven” cautions against are addiction, misrepresentation, and reduced inhibition.

In fact, the film all but claims that the addictive nature of online games and the ability to literally live your entire life on the internet without ever meeting people face-to-face, can kill a person either metaphorically or literally. There are people who carry on the vast majority of their business and personal relationships by emailing, gmail chatting, or playing video games on the internet. In this way people commit social suicide by killing their social life and physical interaction with others. I believe this is what Audrey’s and the other men’s suicides in the film actually symbolized – a person’s voluntary social death through addiction to the internet.

Secondly, “Black Heaven” clearly exposed the problem of misrepresentation and deceit that is so easily exploited on the internet. Considering everything from Facebook to Modern Warfare and The Sims video games to E-Harmony, nobody knows for sure who is actually sitting at the computer on the other end of the network connection. In the movie, Gaspard always thought Audrey was the one talking to him through her Avatar, named Sam, in “Black Hole.” In actuality, it was Audrey’s brother, a psychotic murder bent on killing him, who was on the other end.

Thirdly, the film did a great job of demonstrating how easily the internet, which lends itself well to anonymity, reduces people’s inhibitions and thereby allows us to do or say things we would not do or say otherwise. For example, take Gaspard’s lustful affair with Audrey. On his own and face-to-face, Gaspard would probably not have asked Audrey to sleep with him, and thereby cheating on his girlfriend Marion whom he loved dearly. However, through the cover of anonymity in the “Black Hole” video game, Gaspard used his Avatar (which Audrey did not know was Gaspard) to ask Audrey to sleep with him and thus cheat on Marion. Gaspard is a respectable, loving young man who would have never committed such an offence upon meeting with Audrey in real life.

Additionally, the movie further emphasized this particular danger through the story of how Audrey’s brother came to be so sadistic. Before he started playing “Black Hole” for the purpose of defending his sister, the movie tells us that Audrey’s brother would not have dreamed of killing anyone. However, once the anonymity of the game and the Avatar allowed him to voice his anger without repercussions by berating and telling a young “creepy” man to kill himself, he became consumed by the power. Then he moved to manipulating his sister in order to kill people. Finally, by the end of the movie, he had fallen so low as to actually try and kill Gaspard himself in the hotel room during the staged encounter with Audrey.

Overall, the movie deeply impressed upon me the dangers of the internet as the lines between reality and cyberspace have become increasingly blurred with the advance of the web and other electronic devices. Director Gilles Marchand demonstrated great skill in conveying this feeling, and some of the techniques which I think impacted me most were how he interspersed gaming scenes with the live actors throughout the movie as well as his use of “Black Hole” screenshots to “act out” important scenes in the plot development.

I particularly enjoyed the opening scenes in the movie where the lovers and their friends are jumping off of a diving board into the ocean. Marchand, however, places clips of Gaspard’s avatar, Gordon, chasing Audrey’s avatar, Sam, up a flight of stars, out across a rooftop, and over the roof’s ledge in between each of the young people jumping off of the diving board. This blend of scenes in the shot sequencing created the feeling that reality and cyberspace are indeed blending together into one experience, which is the premise of the movie.

Other artistic elements of the movie that I enjoyed were Director Marchand’s use of foreshadowing and symbolism. Not only did the opening scene mentioned above foreshadow the male victims’ willingness to follow Audrey into suicide, but he also uses music and a dog to foreshadow events that will take place in the movie. For example, Marchand consistently uses the theme song of the “Black Hole” video game to foreshadow an encounter with Audrey. Every time she is about to come on screen, the eerie, somber tune begins to play. Additionally, I believe the golden retriever symbolizes the influence of Audrey’s brother and foreshadows tragedy to all with whom he locks eyes. Gaspard, and Marion encounter the dog for the first time when they track Audrey and her lover, Dragon, to the hardware store and later to the woods when they hear the dog yelping as Audrey and Dragon try to commit suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in their car. Thus here Dragon has been marked by Audrey’s brother for death and tragedy falls upon him.

The second time we meet the dog is in Audrey’s brother’s apartment, and the dog leads Gaspard to Audrey. Soon afterward, tragedy besets Gaspard as he becomes infatuated with Audrey and snubs Marion. Moreover, in the last scene at the police station, the dog is the one who leads Marion past Audrey’s evil brother to the weeping Gaspard, and the tragic revelation of his exploits with Audrey, the game, and the killing spree.

Finally, the entire plot of the movie is summed up in a single scene of tremendous symbolism – the pool scene. In my opinion, it is an incredibly powerful, yet simple and elegant scene which conveys the whole storyline without uttering a word. It goes like this. During what is shaping up to be a night of sex, drugs, and general revelry between Audrey, Gaspard and his two other friends, Audrey gets up from the couch and goes out to the swimming pool behind the house. As the young men are watching, Audrey begins to slip off her bathing suit and slide into the pool naked. For a while the young men simply ogle her as she glides through the water and looks back at them in an apparent invitation for them to join her. Clearly excited, the boys begin to do undress as well, but as soon as they slip into the pool, Audrey begins climbing the stairs out on the other side. I believe this symbolizes the way in which Audrey skillfully manipulates victims with her beauty and sex appeal to convince them to slip into heavenly bliss with her by committing suicide (in the game, the way you get to the Black Beach, essentially Heaven, is to kill your avatar – commit suicide).

Therefore, the combination of an artistic, aesthetically pleasing film with the insightful, real world themes concerning the internet make “Black Heaven” one of the better films here in Cannes. I would definitely recommend seeing this movie and will probably end up buying it on DVD as well.

Reviewed By: Hunter Hodge