Gates of Heaven (3.5 out of 4 stars)

Under different circumstances, maybe I'd up that rating. I mean, after all, Gates of Heaven launched the career of documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, and Roger Ebert once considered it one of the top ten films of all time. And I'm absolutely sure that under different circumstances, I'd probably feel the same. The movie is superficially about the "pet cemetary" and "rendering" industries. Both industries show two extreme ends of our attitudes towards animals, and pets specifically. The pet cemetary reflects our love for our pets - a love so serious and real that we desire a proper burial for them, complete with a beautiful surrounding so that we can visit them. The cemetaries in the documentary are set in the Napa Valley, on beautiful land, with a chapel and a bell, and even an owner who has developed a theology of the animal life for his patrons who, he notes, are able to easily connect the dots to believe in such a thing because of the love of their animals. In one amazing scene, a husband and wife - dressed in the most outdated, amazing clothing I've ever seen (1978) - are talking about their former dog, who was some kind of terrier, and the wife gives this theological exposition of the necessity of the animal soul that at first made me laugh, and then felt very sobering because it seemed so coherent and persuasive. And that was how the movie went in so many instances - these seemingly bizarre people telling their stories, and in so doing, shutting my laughing up.

On the other extreme is the rendering industry, or what I'd always heard call the "glue factory." It's interesting to hear the stories about people's attitudes towards the rendering work as told by the President of one such company. He notes the extreme feelings people have towards the work he does. For instance, an elephant at the zoo died one day, and called the rendering company to come get the animal. When the community found out about it, they were in an uproar, and the President received several calls all day asking about the animal. Was it there? Were they going to turn it into glue? People were very upset. It got so bad that he actually had to deny that he had the elephant, and claimed the zoo had buried it somewhere. He said that at the time of filming, the zoo and the rendering company had some kind of implicit contract in which they wouldn't tell anyone what they were doing. I think this fits the kind of thing Al Roth described when he wrote about repugnance as a constraint on markets.

People feel strongly about their pets, but why? The most fascinating explanation I've ever heard was given in this documentary by the owner of a pet cemetary, and it was an economic explanation. The owner attributes the rise in the "pet boom," (which he said was happening quietly in the United States at that time) to the advent of the birth control pill. What, you say? The pill? How's that going to lead to an increase in the demand for pets? It does so because now couples can delay the timing of their childbirth to some later optimal point in which they can afford to have a child, or when it fits their overall preference structure. But, as he says, you cannot suppress nature's instincts with the pill, only delay the realization of those instincts, and so some kind of surrogate child naturally fits in since 8-9 years on average passes until children are born compared to historical averages. This naturally is the pet. But, it's not just parents, but grandparents that are affected by this. Because when the children leave the house, there is an empty nest at home for these grandparents, and since the pill allows couples to delay childbirth for a season, grandparents too demand a surrogate grandchild. Thus, the pill increases the demand for pets by not just one, but two. Since these pets have invested in them parental resources like nurturing and affection, they are objectified as more than mere animals, and approaching human attributes - which may be why the owner of the cemetary has begun included a homily in his burials and built a chapel on site. Those who bury their pets at graveside have invested their scarce parental resources into these animals, and now the animals exist on a higher plane than before.

The movie is primarily a story about people - their dreams, the relationships (relationships with their pets, but also relationships with their family members), and their struggles. It's a deeply humanitarian film, and the pet cemetary angle seems to almost operate as a kind of hook to get you interested. One of the sons of the pet cemetary business is a kind of stoner who dreams of being a musician. He has recorded over 50 songs on his 8-track, and plays them for Morris. They are competent, even very good. But he's also the number two at his father's expansive pet cemetary business. His older brother (maybe 7-8 years his senior) has recently quit his job as an insurances sales manager, because of burnout, and is now working for his father. The older brother is clearly the more motivated, career-oriented of the two. On his wall in his office are a million trophies, placed strategically so as to intimidate anyone who enters his office, and he speaks with a kind of MBA jargon that makes you want to kill him. He lives on a treadmill of success, whereas his little brother dreams of being a musician and enjoys a simple existence in his beautiful cottage in the Napa Valley. This obviously creates some tension in their relationship when the older brother returns home to work for the family pat cemetary, and has to become third in command under the tutelage of his little stoner brother. But he has to because it's quite clear that the little brother has learned a tremendous amount about this business in all the years he's been working for his father. He appreciates the sensitivity of the burials, for instance, in a way that only experience and valuing his customers could teach one. He understands the logistics and the business plan thoroughly - he walks the audience through a complex grid that is used to map out the expansive burials so as to facilitate all the logistical duties and to help identify empty plots. He gladly combs the matted coats of the dead animals while preparing them for burial - a job he said that is naturally difficult to do, but which gets easier with time. The job is a service as well as a business, and he appreciates both sides of it. And you suspect that for all the older brother's jargon and intimidation, the younger brother possesses a depth and desire that shimmers on the screen.

I think my only complaint is that the movie is more a meditation on its subjects and subject matter than it is a real narrative. If you're fine with that, and want a movie that connects you to the humanity of people, and which operates as a kind of window into the sociology and philosophy of the world, then it's wonderful. I can appreciate Ebert's 4 star rating, and don't question it. I think I respond to these kinds of things better when embedded into a narrative structure. Nevertheless, the film is brilliant, and shows Morris's genius as an editor. He is nowhere in the film, not even his voice, but the movie is tightly edited into something brilliant.