Best Shot: Heavenly Creatures (The Hills are Alive…)
Back in 1994, Peter Jackson already showed a great facility for having his camera swoop around the vistas of New Zealand. The above swirling shot of Heavenly Creatures might well recall the iconic opening of The Sound of Music—until we hear Juliet Hulmes’ bawling seep into the soundtrack. Using a sunny, animated landscape shot to indicate a tormented interior? Yowza! Indeed, no screencap can do justice to the persistence with which Jackson and his editor Jamie Selkirk keep the camera alive and moving throughout Heavenly Creatures, by means of trailing the wild swoops, fancies and injustices in the minds of its adolescent leads. Come back to us, Peter Jackson!
UGH I love this writeup. So succinct and spot-on.
and so appropriate for this which is both Jackson’s shortest post horror comedy movie (though it’s kinda one of those, too) AND his best. I feel like he needs no budget and a “small” story again.
come back to us indeed.
1Great shot. It shows Juliet chaotic and imaginative state of mind and delusions but doing it so simply.
I also just realized that the film takes place in Christchurch, the part of New Zealand that was mostly afflicted by the earthquake. Interesting history. Peter Jackson should come back home indeed.
2wasn’t he the director of LOTR which was shot in NZ too?
3Yep. =)
4