Gates of Heaven

Gate of Heaven is a documentary on pet cemeteries by Errol Morris made in 1978. A quite unique topic that isn't necessarily what I would normally watch. It really shows you how crazy people are about their pets. I am a pet owner and I love all of my pets but I wouldn't go as far as burring my pets in a special cemetery. 

For a documentary its a strange one. Morris seems to let the people just go on and on even when they're not talking about pets. This aspect leads to some humor but you almost feel wrong at laughing at these people. With viewpoints from the runners of the pet cemetery, the pet owners and the rendering company it's hard to tell whose side we're suppose to be on. It starts out with one man wanting to build a pet cemetery and how his business failed and then moved - without any notice - to a successful pet cemetery run by a father and his two sons. The sons seemed more interested in talking about motivational speaking for the elder and playing music for the younger. Instead of cutting the odd bits out Morris has left them in leaving us with a awkward documentary.Case in point the old lady below who was the one of the best interviews - she just kept talking and talking and talking.