Battle in Heaven 2005 ***

Writer/director Carlos Reygadas is something of a visionary in the manner of  Alejandro Jodorowsky, and the surrealist spirit of El Topo and The Holy Mountain is present in his 2005 head-scratcher Battle In Heaven. The film opens with a graphic sex scene involving (Marcos Hernández), a chauffeur who is being aroused by the daughter of his employer. Marcos and his wife have been involved in a botched kidnapping that led to a child’s death, and his guilt leads him to take part in a bizarre religious pilgrimage. It’s hard to summarise or explain the events in Reygadas’s film, but as with his later Post Tenabres Lux, the result is both beautiful and troubling to behold; with a direct interest in both sexual  detail and metaphysical issues, Battle in Heaven is well off the beaten track for entertainment seekers, but a challenging mental workout for sensation seekers.