Title:Battle In Heaven [Batalla en el Cielo]
Cast: Marcos Hernández, Anapola Mushkadiz, Bertha Ruiz
Director: Carlos Reygadas

Marcos is the General's handyman/driver. His duties amount to overseeing the raising and lowering of the flag every day, and driving the General's spoilt daughter about. Marcos has driven Ana about since she was a little girl, picking her from school, taking her shopping. Now Ana is a young woman, and Marcos is the only person close to the General, who knows that the General's tattooed, piereced, dready daughter is working in an exclusive brothel for extra money and the experience.

Battle In Heaven is a Mexican film that follows the contrasts between rich and poor, young and old, the lifestyle differences between Marcos and Ana. Ana swans about as she likes, while Marcos and his wife have done something terrible, something desperate to get some money. Marcos and his wife have been together a long time, and they still love each other, even if they have both become fat and ugly. But at the same time, Marcos is attracted to Ana, and as such confesses his crime to her. This is a complication, especially when Marcos tells his wife, who believes that Ana can't be trusted, and that something must be done.

Some will wax lyrical about the depth of Battle In Heaven, about the love triangle and its power. But to a degree, it is possible to read too much into the film. An aging man is tempted by a young woman, takes advantage of her when she offers him the chance, says something he shouldn't and has to deal with the consequences. The film has a particularly detached style, which again has lead to some intellectual discussion. But what it really means is that you never really get into the characters. At key points in the film, the director decides not to focus on the grit of the plot, instead he goes off for a wander, taking his camera to see what he can see.

The poster for Battle In Heaven urges caution, warning that this film contains scenes of real sex. To a degree that makes the film controversial, any hint of anything approaching real sex being enough for that. Though the reality of the sex is something I wasn't entirely convinced by - I suspect the use of a plastic phallus along the same lines as In The Cut or Festival. Regardless it sort of becomes a false controversy in real terms - its been done before, and certainly some people will be shocked, but those are the people who will be shocked every time, no matter what the film in question is. In fact the scenes most likely to shock the comfortable viewer are those with two naked fat people, where you don't actually see anything explicit.

Over all Battle In Heaven is an odd film. It is gritty, and not especially pleasant or comfortable viewing. The details of the poor family and religious events which work from the background to the fore being where the film has some strength. Though of the films to have broken out from Mexico in the last year, it certainly isn't the best of the bunch.

Title:Kabuki Alchemy
Author: David Mack
Publisher: Icon

Kabuki was trained in the full range of martial art from an early age. When she was old enough she became an agent of the Noh Corporation - one of a group of characters who were allegedly made up for TV, but were actually enforcers and assassins. Working for the Noh, she found out that she had been betrayed. Realising the danger, the Noh Corp told the other agents that she had betrayed them. Injured Kabuki ended up under the protection of the Control Corp, and inter-corporate agency, protecting ex-agents.

While in the Control Corp hospital Kabuki receives a number of messages. A friend, called Akemi, plotting to help Kabuki break free. While at the same time the Noh plot to get and kill Kabuki. Akemi has transported Kabuki to America, where having been through the previous books Metamorphosis, Kabuki starts to undergo the process of Alchemy. The transformation of a leaden assassin to a golden girl.

Currently at its sixth issue, Kabuki: Alchemy is being published by Marvel's Icon imprint. Moving the series from Image Comics, who in turn had poached the original series from Calibre all those years ago. With Alchemy it seems that the Kabuki character has finally become more human. Part of this is the humour, the irony that writer /artist David Mack has brought to this story. What does an ex-agent of the Noh do for work in a new country? Why of course, she gets a job in Noh Land, a Noh Corporation theme park. But she has to start from the bottom, Kabuki is not allowed to play the part of Kabuki, rather she has the part of a cuddly cat called Kappa. Instead of being upset at not being able to play herself, she embraces the cat, starts referring to herself as Kappa in her letters to Akemi.

Kabuki is an evolving narrative. The art changing from black and white pencil work of the earliest material, to vivid, flowing montages. At the same time the story at this point seems to be constructed from letters, which as a comic could become incredibly dry, but not in Mack's hands. Kabuki crouched at home, balancing the cat head on her own, while writing the letters of her new life are wonderful images. At the same time, Mack keeps the big picture moving along - Kabuki has never been as simple as a quick summary might make it sound - with this most recent issue we have the arrival of MC Square, another guest of the Control Corp, and the raising of the question, who is Akemi really? And what is she doing with all the things that Kabuki and Square send her?

Undoubtedly Kabuki remains one of the most innovative, exciting and engaging works of contemporary graphic narrative.