CONTEMPLATIVE 'BATTLE' IS DEGRADED BY SEX, VIOLENCE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

INTERNATIONAL lawyer turned filmmaker Carlos Reygadas' first feature,``Japon,'' shot him to the top of Mexico's art-movie director ranks.

He shares some interests with other members of that group, such as ``Amores Perros' '' Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and ``Y Tu Mama Tambien's'' Alfonso Cuaron. Reygadas has a fatalistic worldview, a keen sense of the discrepancies between society's haves and have-nots, and a confrontational approach to on-screen sex.

But unlike Inarritu and Cuaron, Reygadas eschews in-your-face acting and editing in favor of a measured, contemplative presentational style (his long, slow tracking shots have been compared to Michelangelo Antonioni's). He also employs amateur actors, whose lives parallel their characters' to some degree. And while many contemporary Mexican filmmakers try to look at their country from fresh cultural angles, Reygadas hunts for individual nuances amid traditional - some would say stereotypical - themes.

This makes the director's second feature, ``Battle in Heaven,'' both interesting and frustrating. Obsessed with sex, crime, Catholic guilt and soccer, not to mention an oft-repeated military flag-raising ceremony, the movie orbits around cultural cliches to a distasteful extent. However, it is steadied by magnificent portrayals of sometimes quizzically motivated but always intriguing characters, and by varied visions of Mexico City that seem both as real as can be and, somehow, floatingly dreamlike.

But you want to know about the sex, right? ``Battle'' infamously opens with chubby, unlovely Marcos (Marcos Hernandez, who was a driver for the director's family) getting orally serviced by a pretty, dreadlocked teenager, Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz). He doesn't appear to be enjoying it as much as, well, a middle-age shlub ought to be. The rest of the movie shows us why.

Marcos is a general's chauffeur, and Ana is the military man's rebellious daughter. Marcos has watched her grow up, and he knows about her secret work at ``the boutique,'' an upscale suburban brothel. His carnal longing for Ana is powerful - although, like everything roiling inside of Marcos, it's passively to just barely expressed - and she eventually obliges, though on her terms only.

But what's really bugging Marcos is the death of a baby he and his wife (Bertha Ruiz) have kidnapped for ransom. Ana, to whom he reveals this devastating secret, urges Marcos to turn himself in. The wife is appalled by this possibility. A giant, citywide pilgrimage offers Marcos a glimpse of redemption. But for him, it may not be one that will work.

To say that sacred and profane imagery are daringly juxtaposed here would be seriously understating the case. Love scenes between Marcos and Ana, or between Marcos and his profoundly overweight wife, leave nothing to the imagination, and will be deemed disgusting by different sensibilities for different reasons. They just seem kind of gratuitously graphic to me; Reygadas has some kind of philosophy that relates actors having actual sex on screen to them eating real food in dining scenes, but of course the effect on viewers is far from the same.

Anyway, the sex ultimately distracts from the spiritual crisis that is the film's true substance. And it also draws attention away from moments of behavioral brilliance, many of which are nihilistic or angry but some of which suggest love's solace can be found in the darkest, most unexpected corners of life as well. These are where the true art of ``Battle in Heaven'' exist.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

BATTLE IN HEAVEN - Two and one half stars

(Not rated: explicit sex, nudity, violence, language, children in jeopardy)

Starring: Marcos Hernandez, Anapola Mushkadiz, Bertha Ruiz

Director: Carlos Reygadas.

Running time: 1 hr. 34 min.

Playing: Sunset 5, West Hollywood

In a nutshell: Arty, sometimes borderline cliched, study of a Mexican chauffeur's quiet descent into guilt-ridden self-destruction. It features graphic sex and a shocking act of violence. In Spanish with English subtitles.