A Hole in My Heart

Just when you think that the film has done everything it can to shock and disgust you ... it gets worse ! Thinking about scenes in isolation, they shouldn't be too bad - but I guess it's the whole development of the characters that make events so disturbing.

The director was on stage afterwards (London Film Festival) and said that he thought there were something like 68 different messages in the film, but wouldn't expand on any of them, and wouldn't answer questions about why he had blanked out all the logos - other than to confirm that he had done it on purpose. He also claimed that he didn't understand the film himself, and that he would much prefer to be making children's movies rather than this type of film.

Before the film he had predicted that 9% of the audience would walk out during the film - he seemed pleased that the dropout rate was lower than expected !

Worth seeing, if you like being made to feel uncomfortable ...

You'll probably hear a lot about how shocking and unrelenting this film is. My first reaction was to call the film "Pink Flamingoes"-esque, but I knew this was wrong, as this movie never shocks for the sake of shock itself. I've never seen another Moodysson film (although I will now), but his fury really came through and spoke to me here. He is taking our civilization's obsessions with seeing everything, with pushing limits, and shoving it in our face, making us hurt for it. That said, there is much beauty here as well, and a pitch black humour that carries viewers through the darkest moments. The protagonist, a teenage boy who spends most of his time in his room with headphones on, attempting to block out the increasingly depraved porno being filmed by his father and friends in the living room of a tiny apartment, tells a couple of stories based around the theme of beauty existing under the most impossible conditions, life flourishing where no one would've thought it could, and he is referring both to himself and the moments of grace that Moodysson places throughout the film. He even manages to give a feeling of hope by the end, which stuck with me as I walked down the street, although my stomach gave a serious churn as I walked by an adult video store.

Moodysson's latest is an intense and disturbing barrage of shocking imagery and an unflinching view of broken people who form an attachment built as much on hatred as it is on need for companionship. The film takes a claustrophobic look at four people who live in a small flat; a porn film making man, his son and the man and woman who 'star' in his porn films. Moodysson blurs the boundaries between the porn they film and their bizarre antics to create a bewildering world of obsession a Marat Sade of contemporary mores. This is a profoundly disturbing film; ugly and noisy but with occasional moments of calm and beauty amongst the ugly sex scenes and close ups of heart and genital operations and doll mutilation. It seems that Moodysson is angry and wants to scream his anger full into the viewers face - neither easy or essential viewing but challenging and interesting.

It's a promise. Clickbait. All movie long you're just waiting for something to happen. At least evil people do evil, but these ones are actually doing nothing at all, as if stuck in a void filled with assumption and tension for a war that is never to come: next to some loud music and naked girls, there is nothing but anticipation for a non-satisfaction. Like the Rolling Stones, because Mick Jagger also has become pretty old. It just doesn't come. You can wait for it or spend a beautiful evening doing something else. This movie is better than your random scary movie but never reaches the level of Saw; rather, it's like Liz Truss: it promises, it promises, yet when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

Having loved 'Together' and admired, for the most part, 'Lilya 4-Ever' (as well as his short films), I was dreadfully disappointed with this new work from Moodyson. In an interview about 'A Hole On My Heart' Moodyson stated that he thought it was his best and most complex film, before saying that he didn't know what the film was supposed to be about, not offering any explanation other than 'it has many layers'. Such statements reveal entirely the reason behind the film's failure. Depsite Moodyson's assertion of complexity, there is simply nothing in this 90+ minute film that could not have been adequately communicated in a short. Simply juxtaposing unpleasant images of cosmetic surgery and action men figures with home-made pornography does not constitute a complex statement on anything. In fact the film is hopelessly meandering and one has the increasing feeling that it was 'discovered' in the editing room. I'm very interested in non-narrative film-making, and I don't need a 'story' to communicate events to me, but it is evident to me when there is a severe paucity of drive and ideas, and that feeling was evident throughout a viewing of this film. It concerns me that this film will be defended by people who feel that sitting through the unpleasant content constitutes some sort of test of intellectual rigour and that those who didn't like it are not prepared to 'face up' to the reality this film purports to present. In fact the simple truth is that this is an empty film, with a painful lack of understanding of how to dramatise ideas. I really hope Moodyson comes up with something better next time - I think his talents outstrip nonsense like this.