As it is in Heaven is like a melancholy Little Miss Sunshine for Swedes. Quirky and heartwarming, this film follows a small town with a big heart, as its residents find their individual voices and learn to live together in harmony. The story unfolds when world-renowned conductor, Daniel Dareús—who is exhausted by his high-stress career—returns to his childhood village and discovers how a small-town community can heal an aching heart. Daniel becomes the church choir director and his passion for music soon inspires the townspeople to confront the intense emotions they have repressed for years. And as these singers embrace their unique tones, Daniel too has to find how he fits into the chorus. Addressing issues of physical and emotional abuse, sexual subjugation, and the human tendency towards passivity, director Kay Pollak investigates in this internationally acclaimed film what it really means to be a community. It is clear from the get-go that Daniel is exceptional. The opening scene is of him as a young boy, playing the violin in a golden field. As his bow strikes the strings, however, we see that his musical talent earns him nothing more than some nasty bruises and a reputation as a wimp. Daniel leaves his hometown and its bullies, and eventually establishes himself in the world of music as a hugely successful conductor. But when he suffers a severe heart attack that puts an abrupt end to his remarkable career, Daniel decides to return to very place that had nearly squelched his dreams as a boy. Played by the superb Michael Nygvist, Daniel is a captivating mixture of bewildered, awkward, mysterious and compassionate. When he meets the vivacious, outspoken young woman named Lena (Frida Hallgren), who seems his exact opposite, his lingering stare and clumsy smile captivate her attention as well. While Daniel navigates his new position as Vespor, Lena helps him to connect with the people, reminding him when he is frustrated by interruptions during rehearsal that "coffee is important too." While Daniel becomes more and more engaged with the choir, the minister, Stig (Niklas Falk), feels increasingly ostracized by his congregation. Through Stig's character, Pollak brings up questions about the command of organized religion over people's lives. For example, despite his wife's assurance that sexual desire is natural, Stig condemns it as a sinful act. His wife, Inger (Ingela Olsso), therefore, has had to suffer a life of sexual subjugation. As the choir evolves, Inger finds a sense of freedom and happiness form it that she have in her marriage, which leads Stig to criticize Daniel for using unconventional methods. Realizing that her husband is using religion to oppress her and the rest of the choir, Inger shouts, "there is no sin!" She denounces him, and thus the Christian Church, for trapping Christians in a perpetual state of guilt by "handing out sin with one hand and offering redemption with the other."Gabriella (Helen Sjöholm), like Inger, finds her voice through the enlivened choir. Married to an abusive husband, Gabriella has endured years of feeling afraid and helpless. Daniel writes a song entitled "Gabriella's Song" to sing at the concert: a dangerous act, seeing as her husband disapproves of her doing anything independent. When the moment arrives, her performance is stunning; she appears empowered and full of life for the first time in the film. The song itself tells Gabriella's story, as the solo line embraces her courageous spirit, and the chorus part, like the members of the choir, supports her in her journey. Transformed, Gabriella finally leaves her husband and the townspeople cease to be passive bystanders to her husband's crimes. As they open up to one another, the choir becomes its own congregation and the music their way of worship. However, though Daniel appears to be the minister of their spiritual community, he himself has yet to find his own voice. Lena challenges him to release his inhibitions and be vulnerable—something that his position as a world celebrity never allowed him to do. His timidity juxtaposed with Lena's boldness makes for a charming romance: yet another way in which one can learn to trust their voice and, ultimately, strengthen the voice of the community. Because As it is in Heaven is, after all, a love story: a story of how loving others makes someplace home.

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.

As it is in Heaven is a beautiful story about how one person can have a huge impact on the lives and relationships of others. It is a film about people overcoming obstacles, learning to do what they love, and coming together over one thing, music. This movie is very well made and it is one that will have the viewer very emotionally invested. The movie starts out by following a man named Daniel Daréus, who is a very gifted musician and a world famous conductor. Unfortunately for him he has a medical condition that eventually forces him to give up his job as a conductor, because it places too much stress on his body. Daniel decides to move back to the very small Norwegian town that he grew up in, and he purchases the old school building as his new home. The people in the town, especially the folks in the local church choir are very excited to have Daniel in town because they think he can help them. However, Daniel is not very receptive to that idea at first, but after finally agreeing to listen to them sing, he realizes that they very good, and agrees to help them. Before rehearsing any songs that they are going to sing Daniel teaches them the importance of things such as balance and harmony. He works with a host of different personalities and voices, but he eventually manages to pull it all together and make it work. At the end the choir ends of performing in a big singing contest in Austria, and they put on a very moving performance. One theme is this movie seems to be angels, or guardian angels. At the beginning of the film we saw Daniel as a young boy getting beat up by some bullies because he was a little different from them. It turns out one of those bullies, Conny, was married to Gabriella, a very talented singer in the choir. She was also getting abused by Conny, and everyone, including Daniel knew about it. After realizing early in the film that he would not be able to physically restrain Conny from hurting Gabriella, and seeing that she was too afraid to leave him, Daniel wrote a song for Gabriella to sing at their performance that was intended to make her feel like a strong and independent woman. She was not receptive to it initially, but she ended up putting on a great performance which eventually gave her the strength and confidence to leave Conny. Daniel, with help from all the others in the choir, helped give Gabriella the strength to do this because they were sort of her guardian angels. We also see Daniel play the same role for Inger, who is struggling in her relationship with Stig. Daniel helps Inger to find what it is that makes her happy and what she has to do to accomplish that. Another example of this is Daniel's relationship to Lena. Daniel is infatuated with Lena the first time he sees her, and he is very moved by her singing voice. After eventually building their relationship, Daniel begins to get scared because he has never really loved anybody and he doesn't feel like he knows how. Lena teaches him how to love not only her, but everyone in the choir, and she helps Daniel find happiness before he dies. Another theme in this film is overcoming fear. As mentioned, Daniel overcomes his fear of intimacy and learns how to love. Lena overcomes her fear of being hurt like she was with her previous boyfriend and learns to love and trust Daniel. Inger finally gains the courage to speak up against her pastor husband about her beliefs on sin, religion, and their relationship. Gabriella overcomes her fear of Conny and eventually stands up for herself and leaves him. Another example would be Holmfird's character, who has taken abuse from Arne his whole life but finally stands up for himself. There are many other examples in this movie of people overcoming their fears, and that seems to be one of the overall themes of the film. There are many different themes in this film and several very important and complicated relationships that are followed. Overall I think that this film was very well done and I really enjoyed it. I would say my favorite part was when Gabriella was performing her solo. She has such a beautiful voice and the message of the song was so strong that it gave me chills. There were a few parts that I didn't like so much but for the most part I thought the film was great. One of the better Nordic films that I have seen.

It's interesting, actually odd I think, to see this movie classified here as Comedy first, then Drama. While there are a few comedic moments – as always in real life – most of this story centers upon the drama surrounding the psycho-social awakening of the central protagonist, Daniel Dareus (Michael Nyqvist), a violin maestro and concert conductor of international standing.The awakening specifically concerns Daniel's search for love, something he's been unable to achieve since his teens, when his mother died tragically as he watched – an episode that occurs in the first series of establishing scenes and voice-over. Hence, from the get-go, we know that Daniel is a fragile and emotionally disturbed genius who really needs help.Humans have a penchant for returning to the past for answers – a typical and often quite sensible approach to unresolved psychological problems, as most know. Daniel is no different: he goes back to his home village where he was cruelly bullied when very young, memories of which still haunt him.There, he buys his old school house: long left abandoned, unused, dilapidated and a metaphor for his own emotional state. Significantly, he begins the process of repairing the building and, tentatively at first, also reaching out to the local people, all of whom are wondering what brought such a famous personage to such a nondescript place that seems to be encased in snow and ice for most of the year. In particular, the local church pastor asks him to help out the local choir.Initially demurring because he's shy of human contact, Daniel eventually agrees after meeting the woman who manages a local post office/convenience store, Lena (Frida Hallgren) and with whom he gradually builds a romantic relationship, a crucial step in his self-rehabilitation. Along that way, moreover, Daniel also gets to know the various members of the choir and, to a large extent, the nature of their own insecurities, fears, troubles and doubts.Hence, there are various sub-plots concerning those choir members, all of whom provide different degrees of support and which assists Daniel with his now obsessive need to create a truly cohesive choir that can sing in absolute tonal harmony. Why? Because, not only is music the first and most basic language of humanity, it is – in Daniel's view – the only way to truly and effectively communicate with another human at a 'spiritual' level.The latter might be a bit of a stretch for some viewers, but it is illustrated in perhaps one of the most original choir recitals you'll ever see – anywhere – when the whole choir travels to a contest in Austria to compete internationally. Only the hardest of hearts within the worst cynics will shrug and walk away from that and Daniel's achievement.There are wonderful touches of irony and pathos when we learn about all the choir members as they, with Daniel's help, discover their new strengths and knowledge about each other. As always, some lose, some win. But, that's life, no? Which raises a fundamental issue: at the end, is Daniel a winner or loser? You can judge when you see this movie. All I can say is that it is fitting, win or lose.The production, from Denmark and Sweden, is top rate. The frozen north is captured beautifully. The acting is simply outstanding with the only familiar face for me being Nyqvist (and I've seen many Danish/Swedish films – but not enough as yet, obviously); the cast, when singing together, looked as though they truly enjoyed their work. And the sound track and singing are just perfect, for me.Nominated for Best Foreign Film for 2005, it lost out to a Spanish entry, The Sea Inside, a true-life biopic that I've seen and liked. From my perspective, however, this one is much better.Give it eight out of ten. Recommended for all.February 27, 2012.