Gates of Heaven (1978)

Too much of everything

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A documentary about a pet cemetery in California, and the people who have pets buried there.Roger Ebert wrote that the film is an "underground legend," and in 1997 put it in his list of The Great Movies. This is a very strange film to have on the Great Movies list, especially considering it is probably not generally thought of as Morris' best. He is much more well known for "Thin Blue Line" or "Fog of War", for example.But everyone has to start somewhere, and he started off with some quirky people. We see that here, and we see that with "Vernon, Florida". The Criterion collection was wise to package the two together, because they are very much the same sort of story in a way. Is it America or just humanity in general that has these oddballs?

After watching this film last night for the umpteenth time I decided to finally write a piece up about Gates of Heaven, which has to be one of the greatest documentaries ever made, a film so full of joy and serendipity it appears to be creating itself as it goes along. On the surface we are watching the goings on behind a pet cemetery, the story of a family, the rivalry between prior and current owners of the cemetery and clients who wish to have their pets buried there. It should be noted that these people really really loved their pets, and we see interviews with pet owners who treat their animals like they are a part of their families. This love is what gives the film its real meaning; the more they speak about the love of their animals, the more they reveal about themselves: what it means to bury a pet and afford it an afterlife is a symbol for what we all hope for. Astonishing first work from Errol Morris, a master observer.

The film starts with an man talking about his journey to achieve his dream of opening a pet cemetery in the south bay of San Francisco. We meet the people who help him: investors, friends, pet lovers. We also meet the guy against him, the guy who makes a living out of disposing of dead animals. This is the first part of the film. The second part of the film we meet a family that runs a successful pet cemetery, called the Bubbling Well Pet Cemetery. We meet the father, the head of the business, his wife, the moral supporter, for a lack of a better definition, and we meet the two sons involved in assisting in operations, one is a former insurance worker, the other is a business admin college grad. This is the basic outline of the film. And this sounds kind of boring, maybe. But boring it is not. If anything, slow at times. Thats because the camera is usually completely still and people are positioned in front of the camera, talking into it. What is interesting is how when these characters talk they let loose and go on tangents, exposing their world views, usually in the context of pets, and what we see is the humanity of these seemingly regular people, their musings on life and death, companionship, love, filial duty. For instance, the first man with the pet cemetery idea talks about how you can't trust people, how if you turn around they might stab you in the back, but his dog would never do this because you can trust your dog. The dead pet disposal guy rants about, and is surprised at the emotional connection people have with pets, as though it was something he just discovered in his line of work, and his line of work is treated by him as just a job, not anything controversial. And the sons of the successful pet cemetery owner, one is a motivational speaker. He talks about projecting ideas of success and refraining from using negative words with his little daughter, when she has done something wrong. And the other son talks about his musical aspirations and how he found out what love is in college and then found out about the hard break up afterwards. Erol Morris succeeds at exposing the layers of peoples in a real light, sometimes showing the contradictory and absurdness of peoples personalities and yet also showing the genuineness of people and their intentions. At times the film is comical, at times very serious, and other times sad. Morris is a keen observer of human behavior and this film illustrates this very well. For some local history from the southern SF bay area, for an interesting look at peoples views on very common human issues we can all relate with and of course on pets, see this nice movie. 8 out of 10.

A totally over-rated documentary feature about a pet cemetery in California. The film focuses on the people who run the cemetery, those owners who have lost pets and always tries to win its audience over with philosophical questioning of God, nature, existence and what happens to beings when they give up the ghost forever. In the end the film is not near as smart as it would like to be. "Gates of Heaven" is an odd viewing experience. The people interviewed are quirky and some border on psychotic and disturbed. I found some of the people in the film "drunk on themselves". In other words they thought they were much more intelligent than they really were. The film does not work as a philosophy lesson (check out any work from Terrence Malick instead for that) and it does not work as a comedy (sometimes it is unclear if the people are serious or just playing games with the film-makers). In the end the production is interesting, but far from anything remarkable. As a documentary it works all right, but as a film it has shortcomings several miles long. Always praised by Chicago critic Roger Ebert, "Gates of Heaven" is more smoke and mirrors than actual substance. 4 stars out of 5.