Le côté obscur du coeur

I believe there are few films that can actually touch the core of someone's soul the way Eliseo Subiela does it in this film.

Subiela´s view of life through poetry is outstanding and the magical reality that surrounds the characters transport you to a dimension only felt in the enchanting coasts of Argentina

This movie hit the box-offices in Argentina and drove the standard Hollywood movies out of their normal first places, concerning the numbers of spectators. And not without reason! The movie is not only a love story -the quest of a poet for the perfect woman- but also a story of the ´soul´ of Argentina. It is all about life and death and death in life. The style is superb: surreal shots are mixed with more ´real´shots that ensure the movie does not become totally vague and incomprehensible. The abundant use of poems adds to the magical, surreal, romantic character of the film. The movie kept (and keeps) me to my seat until the end. Subiela shows great love for film-making and this is reflected in this masterpiece. See it!

Another magic and unmistakable film by the Argentinean director and screenwriter Eliseo Subiela.

This is the story of Oliverio, a poor poet without success and his personal quest to find his perfect woman.

This is a story of non-mainstream art and artists who live their lives fully, with coherence, and unconventionally. This is a movie about the importance of poetry and Art in daily life, and about how perfection can be sometimes found in somebody else's rubbish bin.

In this movie, Subiela has the ability to talk about sex and passion in an explicit way, yet full of lyricism and without vulgarity. He harmoniously mixes the conscious, the subconscious and surrealist elements in an easy to understand way. Subiela creates a reality that is personal and real for dreamer Oliverio, real to him, although unreal to us. Subiela also creates a world of alternatives lives within reality as not everybody lives the same, thinks the same, or approaches reality and the world in the same way.

This movie has memorable poetic dialogs, with the intervention of the late Argentinean poet Benedetti (who plays a small role and recites some poems in German in a brothel), the surreal conversations of Oliverio with Death (played by Nacha Guevara) as if they were two friends or lovers who have known each other forever, or his conversations on Time with a cow. In fact, there are so many magic moments in this film that they are impossible to list here.

The downs of the movie are two to me. The first, is the performance by the leading actor, Dario Grandinetti, who I found painful to watch, as he overacts badly all the time; not even his gorgeous naked body was able to make me forget his performance. The second down is the footage, as the movie is 2 hours long and overcrowded with dialogs of great philosophical depth, which can bring you to desperation and give you a headache. I think that a reduction of the footage and the chopping of some of the scenes/dialogs would have helped the movie to get along in a more fluid way without losing any depth.

This movie is full of magic, onirism, surrealism, poetry, and human depth. It is not easy to watch, but mesmerizing at the same time. However, you just have to be ready to watch it, as this is not a film for lazy watchers!

A film about a poet and his love for a hooker; the poet and his friendship with his artistic friends; the poet and his run-ins with the beautiful Death; the poet and his poems. A poetic film.

The Argentinian film El lado oscuro del corazón (1992) was shown in the U.S. with the translated title The Dark Side of the Heart. The movie was written and directed by Eliseo Subiela.

Darío Grandinetti plays Oliverio, an Argentinian poet. He travels to Montevideo where he meets Ana, played by Sandra Ballesteros. She's a beautiful prostitute. The fall in love--they have to fall in love--but she's very clear about the fact that he pays for every evening spent in her bed.

The movie is not just about a poet, but about poetry. Mario Benedetti, Juan Gelman, and Oliverio Girondo are three poets who are well known in Latin America. Characters in the movie--including Ana--recite their poetry.

That was the problem for me with this film. Prose translates fairly well, but poetry doesn't.

Nacha Guevara is the beautiful actor who portrays Death in the movie. She and Oliverio have long conversations. It's an interesting concept, like the knight playing chess against Death in Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957).

The movie worked well on the small screen. It has a strong IMDb rating of 7.6. If I spoke Spanish, I would have given it a higher rating. I rated it 7.