The Heart of the World

Pure fantasia, a race to save the world from a fatal heart attack, juxtaposed against a love rivalry between two brothers - a mortician and an actor playing Christ - for the heart of a scientist studying the earth's core. Whether or not there's any kind of deeper interpretation is hard to tell, with the film racing along in an almost stream-of-consciousness approach, as expressionist cinema conventions are cast against elements of Soviet propaganda films in Maddin's typically exciting and an anachronistic style. Although vague and enigmatic, there is a definite story here; one that is relatively easy to follow if we pay close attention to the incredibly quick cuts and barrage of on-screen information, as references to Metropolis (1927) and Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864) are combined with the director's intuitive sense of visual abstraction, humour and satire, whilst also featuring an almost heartfelt approach to its characters, even in such an exceedingly short-form.

At this point in time, I'm still something of novice to the films of Guy Maddin, though I have seen the vast majority of his short films and would rate them from good to excellent. Like the rest, The Heart of the World (2000) is worth watching more than once in order to pick up all of the information being offered to us in the continual bombardment of overwhelming and fascinating imagery and fragments of captivating narrative, whilst also standing as a simply astounding piece of film-making in the most basic sense. A masterful combination of wit, imagination, style, content and pure cinematic ability, in which the saviour of the world turns out to be none other than cinema itself.

There aren't many artists who are also filmmakers. I suppose part of the problem is that there just aren't that many true artists, never were. I'm talking about people who know the limits of the world, have the tools and commitment to go there and gather magical shards, then come back and use them to cut my tethers.

I'm talking about neither skillful entertainment nor novel decorators of ordinary ideas.

And there are vastly fewer artists making films. Real artists, real films. I have three living that I particularly value: Medem, Wong, Greenaway. But Greenaway is off experimenting in other media at the moment and may be lost, his two greatest collaborators gone and interest in the drugs of narrative waning. I may replace him with Maddin.

It isn't just that the man has an incredible facility with a broader cinematic vocabulary than others. Its that he is able to connect that intuitively to deeper adventures in being and the internal stays that keep our emotional skin from collapsing.

Now to my mind, there's a world of difference between mastering the short form in film — which this is — and the long form. The long form is required for soulchange. It just takes that long for our minds to encircle themselves to strangle the unwanted. But holy cow, what a short form project this is. Since this, I know only two Maddin projects: "Saddest" and "Dracula," and each of them are something I would get my best friend out of bed and travel across the state to see.

This probably won't stick because it is so brief. But it is such rush! Every element in it has either no floor or sits on poles so high you can't see down. His stories are all similar, but no matter because they are irrational, overloaded with contradiction, self-destructive and yet cartoonish. They are — like his images — apparently borrowed from the past and simply pasted, like a child's assembly of magazine photos.

But nothing is borrowed, really. All his ethers are wholly called from his own dreams and merely and loosely wear somewhat familiar costumes.

The main deal here is conflict between a man who is a mortician/military politician (with a penis-cannon) and his brother, an actor who plays Christ deeply enough to convince himself. The two vie for sex with the planet — there's an amazing segment you won't forget where the woman-world in question impregnates herself, and bears... guess.

Cinema! Usually I comment on how clever the folding in a film is. In this case, the folding of the Christ-play is a weapon that is used against the woman in the name of wooing her. Just that one, that one notion is enough to advise you not to miss this.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

6 minutes of my movie viewing life. I was amazed at the emotional impact of this short, the music, editing, visuals and subject matter all combine to make this a masterpiece of cinema...and it is a black and white, silent film at that. Just as satisfying as INTOLERANCE. To some and maybe the casual viewer this may come across as a cheap and quickly thrown together film, but with repeated viewings, you can see the care and time that Maddin lavished on this production, the pace is frantic and actually leaves you gasping for breath...and thinking what did I just see! A highly recommended film and one to include in a library of important and significant works of art cinema.

As with all of Guy Maddin's films, "The Heart of the World" left me, well, speechless. I'm rarely insightful, usually articulate, but I can never write well about a Guy Maddin film. That Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote a whole essay on this film is not surprising, but it does leave me in awe. A wacky narrative featuring the usual Maddin love triangle, this is six and a half minutes of pure joy. The genius of "The Heart of the World" isn't its wackiness or the technical and stylistic qualities of the film, it's that it's not a bit of showboating, but a fascinating experimental success- what Maddin has done is made a whole feature in six minutes. Most short films are short because that's how they were written, that's how much material the filmmakers had and wanted to make. "The Heart of the World" could have easily been a feature. In fact, it has a more interesting 'plot' than a couple of Maddin's actual features (especially "Brand Upon the Brain!" for me). Rosenbaum suggests this might be the world's first 'subliminal melodrama'. That's a better description than I could come up with. I watched the movie twice in a row but I have a feeling I'll be watching it many, many more times. I absolutely loved this film, but not enough to eclipse "Elimination Dance" as my favorite Canadian short, though "The Heart of the World" is almost unquestionably the greater accomplishment. I prefer Maddin's features "My Winnipeg" and "Careful" to this, but again, it's the staggering accomplishment of this film that makes it so worthy of awe. How many filmmakers have done montage better?

Fans of Guy Maddin should check out this new short film. If you thought his previous short film Odilon Redon was an excellent film, The Heart Of The World tops it.

The pacing is frantic, the storyline is the classic love triangle that Guy loves working with, the setting is heavily influenced by Soviet imagery. Even the editing style is very similar to that of Eisenstein.

What also makes this film work very well is the accompanying Soviet music entitled Time, Forward.

Whereas Guy's recent longer narratives have failed (The Hands of Ida, and Twilight Of The Ice Nymphs), his shorts films just keep getting better and better.