Gates of Heaven

1978 documentary



Rating: 15/20



Plot: Errol Morris documentary about pet cemeteries, focusing on both the business people who bury and the folks who have their beloved pets buried. Settings shift from a guy with a failing pet cemetery and his battles with the local rendering business to a very profitable family business in California.



There's a roller coaster of emotions in this cheap-looking but never cheap documentary. There's nothing fancy and nothing tricky here unless you consider careful editing tricky. Morris sets the camera in front of these people and lets them prattle on. It's never fancy, it's infrequently exciting, and it's considerably rewarding. Difficult for most people, me included, would be the lack of narrative. This is idea driven, more philosophically reflective than entertaining. There's no music, no narration, no real transitions from one idea to the next. And not all those ideas connect--there's a rambling woman babbling about her son not talking to her anymore and the hippie kid more concerned about his musical aspirations than burying pets--so the final product is like a ball of string with lots and lots of loose ends. I wonder if subsequent viewings would tie anything together. Regardless, this is an interesting approach to exploring the topics of death, the way people deal with loss, and the afterlife.



Note: This is the film at the center of the bet that resulted in Werner Herzog boiling and eating his shoe. It's also, almost bewilderingly, one of Roger Ebert's top ten favorite movies.



There may be an animal buried in here: