O Mapa do Coração

This is a beautiful, thoughtful, heart-wrenching story. The cinematography of the film is artful and intimate, it feels like you are in the room, almost shamefully eavesdropping... the ending doesn't completely gel for me, the story line works, but I think it needs to be fleshed out a bit more. The ensemble performances are letter perfect, the subtleties and inner thoughts of these characters are crystal clear to the viewer, it's almost unnerving. The frantic energy of wartime life is captured beautifully, without being a trite war movie. It's just another layer of these characters reality, it doesn't overwhelm the story. Brandon Lee is beautiful in this role, very impressive performance. Great great story, I loved this movie!!!!

Did you ever feel you "discovered" something or somebody: a real gem that none of your friends knew about? Well, that's the way I feel about this film, a real sleeper than few people have ever heard about. When they see it - at least the friends I've shown it to - they enjoy it, too. This is an excellent romance story that's quite different, quite touching and quite haunting. This is one of the few movies that actually cost me some sleep after I first saw it one evening.

The two main characters are "half-breeds," Avik (or "Holy Boy") is an Eskimo- white man and "Albertine," an Indian-French female. Both are well-played as kids and as adults. The filmmakers did an amazing job finding two kids who really look like the two adults probably would have looked like when they were young and with the same voice inflections and accents.

As adults Jason Scott Lee and Anne Parillaud are memorable. So is the cinematography, particularly the Dresden bombing scene which is simply jaw- dropping.

Warning: the movie is heart-wrenching at times with not a happy ending, but I think that helps make this film so memorable, so haunting. Even the music is haunting.

This is a strange, mystical movie. Either it's going to mean very little to you or it's going to be something special you'll want to see a number of times.

In "Map of the Human Heart", a down and out middle aged Eskimo man recounts his life story to an Arctic cartographer (Cusack, who has only a few minutes on screen) which constitutes the bulk of the film via flashback. His story begins with his puppy love relationship with a young half-breed girl in a hospital. From there the adorable child couple are torn apart only to have fate bring them together again as adults under the less than idyllic circumstances of WWII. The film meanders from the dramatic to the poignant to the romantic to the horrific and back to square one where it continues the story in present day. Beautifully filmed and well executed though a bit clumsy at times, "Map..." spackles up its many plot holes and provides a thoughtful fantasy camouflage for its lack of resolution in the end while serving up very pretty Kodak moments such as making love on a barrage balloon or dancing in the rafters high above an orchestra. "Map..." is sweet stuff for romantics and sentimentalists who can overlook it continuity and credibility issues in the interest of the human heart. (B)

This film is one of the best romance films i have ever watched. At first I just watched it cause Jason Scott Lee was in it so I thought there was gonna be some butt whupin in it but as I watched on I realized that it wasn't that kind of movie. This is the tale of a good Inuit boy with nothing but good intentions and his love for his childhood sweetheart. He get's screwed over again and again by fate until finally he gets a chance to fulfil his wishes but fate intervenes yet again for the final time. This movie was very moving, very sad. The acting in it was superb and makes me wonder why Lee isn't a bigger star than he is. Through out the movie you can't help but feel bad for Avik. Poor guy. I just saw this movie, 2002 and I can't believe that I missed it until now. 9/10

This film reflects its international pedigree. Canadian films are wonderful when viewed in their "language" and film syntax, kind of a cross between French & English & Australian films in caprice, intelligence, plot development, and subjects.

American movie goers and film watchers (and Reviewers here) find something missing or too over-the-top in Canadian projects, wherever they're financed. "Snow Walker" was good but not "Hollywood." "Battle of the Brave" was good; not exactly Hollywood. "Map of the Human Heart;" very, very good in its own vernacular. Very good - and moving and thought-provoking, and so on ...

"Map..." has a love scene that could have come from the mind & imagination of Spielberg. Though not long or overly explicit, it may be one of the most unique and remarkable and perfectly contextual in all of film. Beautiful. Watch and see, near, or in, the 3rd Act.

Annie Galipeau is young here, and good, and presages her role in "Grey Owl" with Pierce Brosnan.

Thanks MIRAMAX for putting money into risky, off-the-worn-sprocket-hole projects.