Heaven and Knitting

Last night I watched Tom Tykwer's Heaven. The film, about a very sympathetic woman who plants a bomb in an office building, had the colossally bad timing of being set for release right after the September 11th attacks. The studio held the film for a while and then gave it a very quiet release. The film has an unusual provenance. The screenplay is by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski, writer/director of the Blue, White, Red series and The Double Life of Veronique. The film was executive produced by Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, which likely means that one or both of them at one time were hired to direct the film. It's a little fascinating to imagine the three very different iterations of the script that would have produced. The lovely, fascinating, Cate Blanchett stars opposite the usually quirky, off-beat and very talented Giovanni Ribisi. Both are excellent. In all, I didn't love the film. I find Kieslowski difficult to connect to emotionally though I admire his work. Tykwer is very restrained in contrast to his usual uninhibited style.

So all in all fairly good, interesting film that completely ruined my knitting time. I was trying to work on a new lace project but couldn't take my eyes off the screen for a moment because of the captivating visuals and heavy use of subtitles (the film is set in Italy). So I worked mostly on my little afghan square which is this close to being done.