So much average

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

An internationally renowned conductor, Daniel Daréus, played by Michael Nyqvist, suffers a heart attack during a performance and returns to his native Swedish village to take stock of his life. Yet, his efforts to keep aloof in self-reflection do not succeed. After overcoming his initial reluctance, he becomes the local church choir teacher and inspires a bunch of no-hopers not only to find their true singing voice but also to get in touch with their inner, more sensual selves. Inevitably, this outsider-come-guru with his New Age ideas rubs up against the conservative-minded curate Stig, played by Niklas Falk.However, what sounds a promising story is holed beneath the waterline by cliché and clunking pretentiousness. The priest is a leftish caricature--weak, hypocritical, envious. Armed only with his 'outdated' ideas of sin and redemption, he cannot compete with the touchy-feely emotions awakened in each of the choir members by Daréus who, adorable with his air of pained vulnerability, liberates (albeit unwittingly) the inhabitants from the stifling moral climate which pervades the village. With his peculiar intimate way of communicating music, he takes the inhabitants to a higher mystical plane, which, of course, is clearly intended by the director, Kay Pollak, to be several orders higher than Stig's fusty Christianity. However, the director's efforts are so clumsy in this regard, that no such effect is achieved. The director has also decided to lend the film a strong, but slightly jarring feminist slant. All the male characters are either weak or weak, stupid and bad, or completely inoffensive like the protagonist himself (heart condition) and the retarded youth who plays, rather predictably, a mysterious role at the heart of the group. In contrast, all the women are strong, intelligent and sensitive characters. The battered wife of the group sings solo a defiant song about 'finding herself' and so on. But it's the attempts at profundity that annoy. Daréus' new-found girlfriend, Lena, played by Frida Hallgren tells him 'there is no such thing as death'. I suppose that's meant to sound profound. But it drops from her mouth like a potato from a torn sack. Yet it's the finale which finally exposes the vacuity of the film, where, without giving the end away, the director's final stab at sublimity merely makes you squirm in embarrassment.

First: I really liked this movie, though I don't find it one of three or five best Swedish movies. But any among twenty best Swedish movies is better than top three of most other countries.Nothing is perfect, including movies. However, I find some objections from other comments not important or completely mistaken.It is true that people in the village (in choir or out of it) show a great range of different characters. It is true that they can be described as clichés. But this is not unrealistic. I wonder how many of these comments have been written by people who live and know the life in distant, separated villages. It is normal that you find very different people there, on one place. In big cities (where most of IMDb critics live) so different people usually don't appear together, they tend to be in groups with people of similar interests, education, social status, hobbies etc etc. In small villages people are rather unique, they can't be in groups with similar people because there are no similar ones, so any group contains different characters. Which can more or less look like clichés.Sweden, as other Nordic countries, really pays big attention to home violence. But distant villages are again world of its own. Have you seen any policeman in the movie? We don't know how far away is the closest police station. Village lives their tradition rules and law. That's why Gabrielle stays longer with Connie than most city woman would. And it's not illogical to expect a person who was able to suffer and bare Connie for so many years to do what she has done when he finally had to face the law. Despite a comment that finds it unbelievable, people who are still more bound to tradition than to modern trends still have some ability of forgiveness, something that's unpopular and almost extinct in our culture. But if we look in books or movies made few decades ago, this wasn't such a rare and unbelievable characteristic, so it can still appear in traditional, especially religious communities.What me leads to final and most important reason why I wrote this comment.This is an deeply religious movie, and it must have been done either by a deeply religious or complete atheistic author. It rejects the cold, heartless demagogy and extreme pharisee-ism of narrow-minded fundamentalists that seem to be trapped in Old Testimony, and shows the expression of life and faith that can be reached once given a freedom and love (one that New Testimony offers). Such a devotedness to one final aim, closing circles of his life and simultaneously rotating in a spiral to its top, achieving the final point, the climax of his life, fulfilling everything he was living for...That's why I can understand how somebody compared Daniel to some kind of Jesus. However, I don't see him as Jesus. David isn't sinless, sometimes he has hidden motives and isn't free of manipulation and vanity. But I can compare him to St Peter. His faith/devotion isn't equally strong all the time - something like Peter's when he denied Jesus. Jesus ended his life on Earth on the top of the mountain, while Daniel's death in the basement looks more like St Peter's crucified upside-down on a Roman square, now basement of St Peter's Basilica. And Daniel's work looks more like following Jesus' words to Peter: "you are Peter (Petros), and on this rock I will build my church": he had his work done, he was a rock firm basement of the choir that doesn't seem to be turned to dust after Daniel's death.However, Daniel's devotion was not to faith or God but to art. On the other hand, he finds his fulfillment through church choir and the more we follow his work, the more we see that he accepts religious music to achieve his aim. So it is up to each of us to interpret if it is music and art, or it is faith and God that fulfills one's life as the final and eternal aim. And this is why, depending on the premise, I can't tell if the authors are truly religious or completely atheistic persons. But no matter what is in their hearts and soul, their movie is a true art that gives us freedom to chose for ourselves.

Kay Pollack's sometimes annoyingly uplifting moralistic film, "As It Is in Heaven", shows the story of a man returning to his hometown marked by his own sad memories of his childhood. Daniel Darius, played by Michael Nyqvist, is an extremely successful and gifted conductor, composer, and musician but is forced to question his career after a serious health scare. Daniel moves back to his hometown and is coerced into listening to a local choir, despite his protests. He eventually concedes to directing and teaching the choir once he discovers an interest in one of the choir members. The influence of religion is heavy and rather obvious in this film. The choir is a church choir that sings religious songs, both in Swedish and English. There are moralistic themes in the storyline such as: believing in oneself, finding ones voice, going on despite the odds, etc. The fact that the main character, Daniel Darius, is shown to have risen from oppression into excellence and to have overcome odds propels him to some sort of Christ figure. If Pollack had intended to make any subtle comparisons or similarities to religion, he failed miserably. In a bit of an interesting contrast, Pollack also highlights violence, specifically violence perpetuated by men who are supposed leaders of their church or family. Conny, played by Per Morberg, is Daniel's childhood bully who has stayed in their hometown and married a woman whom he controls in almost every aspect beats his wife and Daniel when he is displeased. Also, the pastor, Stig played by Niklas Falk, turns to violent actions against his wife Inger, played by Ingela Olsson when she displays questionable actions in his view. It is difficult to understand why Pollack included this violence alongside the more moralistic and holy religious themes especially given the fact that the pastor is involved in this violence. So it almost seems as if Pollack is supporting spirituality and religion but not the hierarchical nature and old rules of the church. Stemming from this strange side by side comparison of religion and violence, the idea of hypocrisy is shown through the entire film. Going back to Stig, the pastor, it is revealed to the viewer that he hides pornographic magazines in his house for his own sexual pleasure, and his wife knows of this but doesn't acknowledge it until a key point in their relationship. So while he claims to be this holy man, he is just as weak to sexual pleasures as any regular person, and instead of acknowledging this, he chooses to hide it and make himself a hypocrite. Towards the beginning of the film, it is shown how Daniel lives and breathes his music, which is the love of his life. Once he moves to his hometown, he initially refuses to help a choir who only wants to live and breathe their own music. It seems that Daniel understood what a hypocritical stance this was and decided to help the choir (it also helped that a beautiful woman was a member in the choir, but I'd rather give Daniel a bit more credit than that). Now as to why I am only giving this film a five out of ten. I do not enjoy films that hit a viewer over the head with the intended theme or moral of the story. This is purely personal preference when it comes down to it, but I'd rather have a very open film that has many interpretations than a very closed one with a very intended result. It may be more approachable to more viewers because of how easy the meaning of the story is to grasp, but I'd like to think that I am not a normal, ignorant film-goer. This just wasn't a sophisticated plot that made me think. Nonetheless, Michael Nyqvist did a wonderful acting as Daniel Darius and his wide range of emotions, but even a good actor cannot save a movie like this one. "As It Is in Heaven" most definitely had an agenda in its storyline, not that that is generally a bad thing, but how Pollack went about doing it made it too redundant for my taste. Although there were some interesting contrasts between religion, violence and hypocrisy, it did not feel as though those contrasts were as developed as they could be to make this film more thought provoking and profound. The film was most definitely intended to be uplifting and "warm fuzzy"-inducing, but rather I felt more annoyed than anything after the film ended.

While this film provides a mildly interesting view of life in northern Sweden, there are plot holes you could drive a truck through. In particular, character motivation is incomprehensible. Why does this world famous musician retire to his childhood home which he hated? This is never really explained, and it is an important point. He could go anywhere in the world he chooses, so why go to this cold Swedish hell? Not explained. Why does he agree to direct a choir when all he wants to do is "listen?" Again, no convincing explanation. What the heck is physically wrong with him? We are told "heart problems" yet we see him smeared with blood on several occasions (looks more like TB than heart problems) and there appears to be no attempt at medical treatment or self-care. He seems to have no idea of his own physical limitations or to take the most basic steps towards remaining alive. So is he suicidal or what? Again, there is a large plot element focused on domestic violence, but the police are not called in until very late, and there is no real reason why not. Etc. etc. The film makes some lame attempt to answer these and other questions, but the result is unconvincing and unsatisfying. Thumbs down, an insult to viewers' intelligence.