| Black Heaven | |
| Director: | Gilles Marchand |
| Producer: | Carole Scotta Caroline Benjo Simon Arnal-Szlovak Barbara Letellier Jacques-Henri Bronckart |
| Cinematography: | Céline Bozon |
| Music: | Emmanuel D'Orlando Anthony Gonzalez |
| Editing: | Nelly Quettier |
| Distributor: | Haut et Court IFC Midnight (USA) |
| Runtime: | 105 minutes |
| Country: | France Belgium |
| Language: | French |
| Budget: | $5.8 million[1] |
| Gross: | $453.349[2] |
Black Heaven (original title: L'Autre monde) is a 2010 French drama film directed by Gilles Marchand and starring Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Louise Bourgoin, Melvil Poupaud and Pauline Etienne. It tells the story of Gaspard, who is lured by a beautiful girl into an obsessive, deadly video game.[3] [4]
Gaspard is a young man who leads a visibly carefree life in the South of France. His life changes when his new girlfriend Marion finds a mobile phone in a changing room on the beach. This belongs to a certain Dragon and several messages are addressed to a certain Sam. The last message contains a time and location for a date. Gaspard and his girlfriend also decide to go to the appointment, where they do indeed see both Dragon and Sam show up. Sam turns out to be a beautiful young woman whose real name is Audrey and to which Gaspard is immediately attracted. Instead of returning the cell phone to Dragon, Marion and Gaspard decide to follow Audrey and Dragon instead.
After a visit to a DIY store, both couples end up in a deserted corner at the end of a dirt road. Marion and Gaspard have lost sight of Audrey and Dragon for a moment, and when they find them again, a tragedy appears to have occurred: Dragon and Sam/Audrey have tried to commit suicide using a plastic snake and Dragon's car. Marion and Gaspard make an attempt to save them, but for Dragon, their help comes too late.
Audrey with faint signs of life survives by Marion giving her rescue breaths until the medics arrive. The experience has scarred Gaspard heavily. He continues to see Marion, but he secretly fantasizes about Audrey. Through another message on Dragon's cell phone, he discovers that both Dragon and Audrey were active on an online computer game called "Black Hole". Sam turns out to be the name of Audrey's avatar in this game. A second chance encounter with Audrey as he finds her and finds a tattoo up to her butt cracks which says "heaven" as gets dressed while naked in a changing room in real life makes Gaspard search for her alter ego in the gaming world. Eventually he finds (thanks to his own avatar Gordon) Sam back in a virtual private club in Black Hole. During the night, she skinny dipping in her house with Gaspard and his two friends following her, getting out of the swimming pool naked and dancing in her robe, After a few dates in the virtual world, 'Sam' (who doesn't know that 'Gordon' is actually Gaspard) and 'Gordon' make a pact: he has to hurt his girlfriend for her, she will spend the night with her savior (Gaspard) in return. After Gaspard fulfills his part of the pact by brutally dropping his girlfriend, he is disappointed by Audrey. Instead of making love to him, she spends the night with his friend Ludo.
When the disillusioned Gaspard returns home, he discovers that Vincent - Audrey's brother - has broken into his home. Vincent tells Gaspard that his sister has long been suicidal. He also discovers that Vincent was spying on them the day Gaspard and Marion were able to save Audrey. Vincent admits his sickly fascination with suicide, and Gaspard suddenly understands that it is Vincent who uses his sister to lure young people into suicide pacts. He tries to contact Sam/Audrey through Black Hole and manages to make a date at the apartment she shares with her brother, not knowing that it was actually Vincent who controlled Sam within Black Hole. When Gaspard arrives at Audrey and Vincent's apartment, he is overpowered by Vincent after a short conversation with Audrey. He cuffs his hands and drags him to the roof of the apartment building, with the intention of pushing him off. Just before he succeeds, Audrey attracts her brother's attention by jumping off the roof herself. Realizing that his sister is dead, Vincent stops trying to kill Gaspard.
The next morning, both Gaspard and Vincent are in the police station. Gaspard is reunited with Marion, who hugs him after seemingly forgiving him for his past behavior.
The music is composed by Emmanuel D'Orlando and M83's Anthony Gonzalez. It also features songs from previous M83 albums.