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Stinking Heaven Review - AVClub

Set in 1990, Nathan Silver’s Stinking Heaven—which is already potentially alienating viewers with that title—looks like a no-budget movie that might actually have been made around then, by someone who couldn’t afford even 16mm film stock. Silver shot it on the Ikegami HL-79E, a camera that was mostly used for TV news broadcasts in the 1980s. Unlike the even more ancient video camera employed in Computer Chess, the Ikegami shoots in color, or at least in a rather sickly approximation of color; it’s the visual equivalent of the home-brewed herbal tea the film’s characters sell on the street, which potential customers practically have to be strong-armed into tasting. Certain lighting produces odd ghosting effects, which Silver embraces rather than avoids. The TV-ready Academy ratio (1.33 to 1) underscores the feeling of watching a curio from decades past, as it might have appeared on VHS or a cable-access channel.