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Reygadas acknowledges a displacement from the existential crisis in Japón to a social crisis in Batalla en el cielo (James, “Angels,” 31). Like its predecessors in the New Latin American Cinema, Reygadas’s Batalla en el cielo (Battle in Heaven, 2005) offers social critique in that it underscores economic inequality and rampant corruption throughout Mexican society. Examples of its shocking scenes appear when the film opens and closes with blow jobs. Marcos (Marcos Hernández) is beset by guilt because of the unexpected death of the baby he and his wife, Berta (Bertha Ruiz), kidnapped to exact ransom.1 Marcos shares the news with Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), the daughter of the general whose driver he has been for more than fifteen years. When Ana learns the secret she suggests Marcos get some consolation from her friends at the brothel where she, unbeknownst to her parents, works. Given Marcos’s impotence with another sex worker, Ana assumes Marcos wants to have intercourse with her, and she complies. When he returns home, Berta suggests the couple atone for their sins by going on a pilgrimage to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, but Marcos seeks to assuage his guilt through strenuous activities such as climbing a mountain that is crowned by a set of crosses. When he realizes Ana doesn’t care for him, he stabs her to death. After doing penance, he dies at the basilica. CHAPTER TEN CRIME AND SELF-INFLICTED PUNISHMENT Carlos Reygadas’s Batalla en el cielo Carlos Reygadas’s Batalla en el cielo 169 Even though Marcos and Ana are dead, the movie ends with another blow job, which reinforces doubts about their ontological status. Are these scenes real? Imagined by Marcos? As we will see, the initial and final blow jobs suggest a circular structure, yet both scenes are diegetically out of sequence, and the attitudes of the protagonists differ. At the beginning, the camera focuses on a tear sliding down Ana’s cheek; however, as the film closes, a beaming Marcos says, “Te quiero mucho Ana” (I love you so, Ana), and she replies, “Yo también te quiero, Marcos” (I love you too, Marcos).2 The deliberately weak links between the scenes lead to the ambiguity that pervades the film. Though the reappearance of the protagonist provides continuity, the abrupt shifts stress the interval. For instance, while the locale of the blow job remains undetermined, the next scene takes place in the wee hours of the morning at the Zócalo, where Marcos witnesses the raising of the flag, presumably because he works for the general, Ana’s father, whose office is nearby. Afterward, we see Marcos standing against the blue metallic wall of the metro. Another cut leads us to a naked Marcos standing against the light-blue wall of the brothel. In the following scene, at night, Marcos is filling the tank at a deserted and aseptic gas station. Soon we see a Botero-like shot of Marcos’s wife sitting by her son, Irving, who is sleeping on a yellow sofa. In the following scene the camera cuts to Marcos, who reappears at the Zócalo. It is dawn. Another cut takes us back to the so-called boutique. Then the camera leads us to the apartment of Ana’s boyfriend, Jaime. At dawn, Marcos reappears at the Zócalo. Later that morning, he shows up at Jaime’s apartment. After he kills Ana, information about Marcos and the agents who pursue him is presented through parallel alternate montage until the agents meet Marcos at the basilica. While the rain has a cleansing value, the bells toll for the dead in the Zócalo, reminding us of Berta’s plans to do penance. As in Japón, Reygadas uses the camera to follow quite closely the protagonist’s point of view. Jostling to take the train, Marcos loses his eyeglasses . At the airport we see Ana through his eyes, that is, as in a dim blur, out of focus. The camera’s point of view seemingly becomes independent when Ana and Marcos have intercourse. The camera initially focuses on the open window before beginning a 360-degree pan that takes in two men installing a network dish. It then travels around the adjacent buildings, follows a long crack in the wall, and stops at a dripping faucet. The pan continues along the lovers’ bodies to [18.218.70.93] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 08:42...

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