Heaven and Earth Magic (1962)

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Heaven and Earth Magic Movie Review

Heaven and Earth Magic is a 1962 experimental animated film directed by Harry Everett Smith. It is a very overrated, annoying film.

“The first part depicts the heroine’s toothache consequent to the loss of a very valuable watermelon, her dentistry and transportation to heaven. Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land, in terms of Israel and Montreal. The second part depicts the return to Earth from being eaten by Max Muller on the day Edward VII dedicated the Great Sewer of London”. Yes, that is the premise of this movie and, needless to say as is usual for these avant garde films, that plot is just made up and nowhere to be found in the actual movie.

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I have a big problem with these self-proclaimed “artistic” movies and this one really annoyed me. I just never found any meaning to it whatsoever as it is filled with random image after random image. And never I felt it to be art, never.

Heaven and Earth Magic is of course so tedious and I was bored immensely during its very slight running time of only 66 minutes and that tells a lot. I thought the movie repeated itself as the imagery was so similar throughout the whole picture.

Let’s talk about that animation. I didn’t hate it as the movements were pretty well done, but that’s about it. The various objects present here were limited and basically repeated time after time. A skeleton and a watermelon appeared countless times. The animation isn’t bad, but it is nothing to write home about either.

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Harry Everett Smith directed this movie and I have no idea what his goal was. He created one meaningless, pseudo-intellectual animated film that I found to be very dull and overrated. In fact, it is one of the most overrated animated films of all time. Its inclusion in the book ‘1001 Movies to See Before You Die‘ just further showcases how wrong that book can be when that is the animated film they chose and they put a very limited number of those. Such a wrong, frustrating choice.