As It Is in Heaven, director Joshua Overbay’s extremely effective feature film debut, opens with a fluid, beautiful tracking shot of a white-robed young woman walking from a large house through dense clusters of lush Kentucky foliage. She sings—then absently hums—along the way, ending her brief journey at a riverbank where a member of her tiny religious sect is being baptized.
It’s a scene of pastoral loveliness that subtly but powerfully telegraphs the warmth and familial comfort that draws people into the waiting arms of such an enclave in the first place. And one of the big strengths of As It Is in Heaven is how it casts a non-judgmental eye on its hot-button topic. This may be a drama about religious cultists facing their foretold end of days, but it never wags a finger at its characters, and it proceeds with the languid flow of a dream that turns gradually but inexorably bad.
The seeds of conflict are sown early on when ailing cult leader Edward (John Lina) anoints the recipient of that baptism—newcomer David (Chris Nelson)—with the task of leading the flock. Once Edward passes away, David assumes leadership with gradually-intensifying fervor. The end of the world is nigh according to the sect’s new leader, but his insistence on a 30-day fast leading up to Judgment Day rouses the doubts of Edward’s restless son Eamon (Luke Beavers).
Overbay builds up this scenario with unforced simplicity and an unexpectedly empathetic eye. If David is heading down the path of fanaticism, he’s genuinely convinced that he’s doing God’s wishes right by his people, a resolve that makes their devotion to him utterly plausible. We receive little extraneous background about any of the characters in As It Is in Heaven, and that enigmatic approach actually works in the movie’s favor. David’s shadowy past, the Cain-and-Abel tensions between him and Eamon, and the fleeting flashes of questioning lucidity amongst other cultists are either inferred or telegraphed with near-subliminal restraint. Through it all, Isaac Pletcher’s beautiful location photography—and the frequently serpentine elegance of his camera’s movements—provide a deceptively prosaic backdrop that somehow amplifies the tension.
As It Is in Heaven moves at a pace seemingly informed by its humid and remote locale, which might turn off some folks, but it’s a journey well worth taking. Spiritual enlightenment, Overbay says, can tumble down the darkest of rabbit holes with alarming ease, and watching his movie play out that descent with quiet inevitability packs a surprising emotional wallop.
[As It Is in Heaven opens tonight at the Northwest Film Forum, and plays there through Thursday July 24.]
