And hell? "Hell is for those who don't know they're dead," says Albert. Or they know they're dead but don't know what the deal is. Or they won't go along with the deal. Many of those in hell are guilty of the greatest sin against God, which is despair: They believe they are beyond hope.
After the death of her children and husband, Annie has despaired, killed herself and gone to hell. Chris wants to find her: "I'm her soul mate." Albert says that's not possible: "Nothing will make her recognize you." But he acts as a guide, and Chris ventures into hell, which, like heaven, has been realized with a visual intensity and originality that is astonishing. In this film, the road to hell is paved, not with good intentions, but with the faces of the damned, bitter and complaining (the face and voice of Chris's father are played by the German director Werner Herzog).
What happens then, what happens throughout the film, is like nothing you have seen before. Vincent Ward is a New Zealand director whose works have not always reached a large audience, but have always dared for big ideas and bold visuals to express them. He made "The Navigator" (1988), about medieval Englishmen who tunnel to escape the plague--and emerge in the present. And then, in 1993, he made the great "Map of the Human Heart," about the odyssey of an Eskimo boy from Alaska in the 1930s to London in the war, and from a great love affair to high adventure.
"What Dreams May Come" ends, like "The Navigator," with the characters seeking their destiny in a cathedral--but this one, like many of the film's images, is like none you have seen before. It is upside-down, the great vaulted ceilings providing a floor and a landscape. Since I have mentioned Herzog, I might as well quote his belief that our century is "starving for great images." This film provides them, and also provides quiet moments of winsome human nature, as when a character played by Rosalind Chao explains why she appears to be an Asian flight attendant, and when another, played by Max Von Sydow, explains the rules of the game as he understands them.
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