As It Is In Heaven

What is As It Is In Heaven (Så Som I Himmele)? This Swedish film, playing in an open ended engagement at the Angelika, dwells in snowbound landscapes and oddball characters not unlike the recent Lars and the Real Girl. But AIIIH exists miles from Lars.
As It Is In Heaven came out in Sweden in 2004 and was nominated for a best foreign film Oscar in 2005. Usually a film a few years old and of that pedigree pops into the local museum for a weekend night and disappears but audiences in search of sophisticated cinema can take in this wintery concoction at their leisure. Michael Nyqvist, a charismatic actor who instantly looks familiar but in actuality whom I've never seen in another movie, plays Daniel a world class conductor. When we meet him at the movie's beginning he's berating an orchestra in the middle of rehearsal. The camera action is zig-zaggy handheld dizzy. Before the scenes over Daniel's collapsed in exhaustion with a total mental breakdown and heart attack.
To recuperate Daniel travels to his tiny hometown and here's where the fun starts. Part of the appeal of AIIIH is the way character motivation feels real. Not all the characters are fully developed, for instance the wife beater is just a stereotypic cypher but several of the townsfolk are fully defined. Daniel is asked to help with the church choir, a request that he avoids. But when he tries to interfere with the wife beater, also a former schoolmate, he gets the crap beaten out of him. Daniel instantly changes his mind about helping out the pastor as cantor to the singing group.
At this point AIIIH alternates between Daniel's rehabilitation and character studies of the various choir members. Naturally Daniel's technique (which at one point includes a group grope) changes the various members for the better but to the consternation of their spouses.
Eventually the group is invited to perform at a competition in Austria but the director has a few surprises in store. (Actually I was perplexed at the fact that they board a bus and drive from Sweden to Austria in a day but my unfamiliarity with the scope and distance of Europe is now evident.) AIIIH posits that life is not fair but that heavenly rewards come to those who deserve them.