{"id":913183,"date":"2026-09-28T19:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T19:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913183\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T19:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T19:42:09","slug":"heil-jupiter-review-carlos-reygadas-latest-cinematic-head-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913183\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Heil Jupiter!’ Review: Carlos Reygadas’ Latest Cinematic Head Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIconoclastic Mexican director Carlos Reygadas<\/a> continues to test the boundaries of cinema, and the patience of many a viewer, in his latest audaciously executed head trip, Heil Jupiter!<\/p>\n

\n\tMaking its world premiere at the New York Film Festival<\/a>, this highly experimental and exhausting experience hops across several continents, time periods and languages \u2014 including an invented one used for many dialogue scenes \u2014 as it follows four friends whose lives go from heavenly to hellish over the course of 158 minutes. Who these people are and what they\u2019ve even doing seem to matter less to Reygadas than plunging us into visceral scenes of sex, authoritarian violence and head-scratching surrealism taking place amid lots of breathtaking backdrops shot across the globe. There are definitely some unforgettable images in Heil Jupiter!, but good luck trying to make heads or tails of them.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tHeil Jupiter!\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tVisually arresting and totally self-indulgent.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenues: New York Film Festival (Currents)
Cast: Neli de la Rosa, Alexis S\u00e1nchez Alonso, Flor de Le\u00f3n, Alexis Said Villa de Le\u00f3n
Director-screenwriter: Carlos Reygadas
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2 hours 38 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Mexican auteur started off in the early aughts with a trio of strikingly directed arthouse flicks (Jap\u00f3n, Battle in Heaven, Silent Light) combining a form of minimalist realism with something more animalistic and otherworldly, as if the work of Robert Bresson had been rejiggered by Terence Malick. For his fourth feature, Post Tenebras Lux<\/a>, Reygadas took a major detour toward the avant-garde and the personal, in a move that garnered him some detractors while pleasing his more hardcore fans. He went even further with 2018\u2019s Nuestro tiempo<\/a>, which felt much more self-indulgent than exploratory.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn terms of pure brazenness , Heil Jupiter! marks another leap forward for the director, who has crafted a movie that showcases his trademark visual inventiveness during nearly three hours of head-scratching nonsense. This could again please Reygadas\u2019 diehard followers, while others will be left baffled by a film that seems to be making things up as it goes along. At best, this boldly immersive effort will find a home at other festivals and in one-off screenings, whereas general indie distribution seems unlikely.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie kicks off with a bunch of abstract colors and shapes flashing on screen for a while, as if we were watching an animated Rothko painting or being brainwashed \u00e0 la The Parallax View. Reygadas then hurls us into the sea during a long shot of waves hitting the camera, until he finally cuts away to reveal a band of amigos \u2014 Lina (Neli de la Rosa), Milu (Alexis S\u00e1nchez Alonso), Tzina (Flor de Le\u00f3n) and Said (Alexis Said Villa de Le\u00f3n) \u2014 embarking on a fun-filled and rather graphic foursome by the seashore. The lengthy opening sequence ends with the camera literally descending into one of the guy\u2019s butts and then up into his bowels, which could be read as a metaphor for this entire project.<\/p>\n

\n\tShot by a handful of cameramen, with Daniel Vald\u00e9s Serrano receiving top credit, Heil Jupiter! shares a similar look to Reygadas\u2019 recent features, using a box-like 1.33:1 frame and short focal lengths to give everything an experiential, you-are-there quality. Sometimes the images are blurred along the edges, while other shots seem to have been manipulated using CGI. The soundtrack is filled with layered mixing punctuated by the occasional burst of operatic or choral music (the score is credited to ten people, including Reygadas).<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s worth emphasizing the film\u2019s imagery because it\u2019s otherwise hard to discern anything resembling a plot. After the opening orgy, we cut to fighter jets flying over snow-capped peaks in search of a \u201cMysterious Earth Sound.\u201d Then we\u2019re inside a cave lighted by campfire, where we see Lina and Tzina giving each other manual pleasure while other semi-naked folks dance around them. Then we\u2019re in Poland, where the bodycam of a local cop reveals a raid on an immigrant family that includes Tzina, who now has several children. Later, she\u2019s brought in a police car to a nearby pond, strapped to an excavator and dunked into the water as a crowd of anti-immigrant protestors cheer on the public execution.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other characters don\u2019t fare much better in a film that takes us from the ecstasy of sexual freedom to scenes of torture, humiliation and degradation, including one long sequence set in a meat factory specializing in human body parts. Much of the closing reel of Heil Jupiter! focuses on a trial during which Lina is accused of witchcraft by the Mexican authorities, in extended dialogue scenes shot like they\u2019re on Court TV. Excuse me, but what hell is going on here? (Emphasis on hell, which describes the general mood during much of the film, even if the ending offers up a semi-surreal form of hope.)<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the press notes, Reygadas claims he was \u201cseeking out images and sounds, all undefined, without structure but clearly trembling together.\u201d That\u2019s probably a good summary of what he\u2019s accomplished here, because one would be hard pressed to make sense of this unrestrained mess of a movie. That doesn\u2019t mean Heil Jupiter! lacks a certain power, especially during some of its more visually absorbing moments, but taken as a whole \u2014 and a long one at that \u2014 it leaves you feeling submerged, indundated and tiredly washed ashore, just like in its neverending opening shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iconoclastic Mexican director Carlos Reygadas continues to test the boundaries of cinema, and the patience of many a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,315301,75,1072,337,74562,315302],"class_list":["post-913183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carlos-reygadas","tag-entertainment","tag-mexico","tag-movies","tag-new-york-film-festival","tag-new-york-film-festival-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}