What does everybody think? [Ett hål i mitt hjärta]

[JimmyC]

I know everybody on this site is a fan of Fucking Amal and most are fans of Tillsammans and Lilja-4-Ever too. But what about this film? I saw it last week, and I have mixed opinions on it. On the one hand I really loved (and am impressed with) how these characters slowly attach themselves to me throughout the movie (whereas I started out hating them all). It's surprisingly enjoyable, and the ending I felt was satisfying. On the other hand, a lot of the experimentation of video seemed obvious, heavy handed and just didn't work. Like the body mutilation, the GI-Joe toys, the fantasy shooting of the dad etc. I think I know what he was trying to do, but it just feels a bit too direct to work. My favorite parts are the little moments, like the laundry machine, or when she comes back to the apartment with lots of food, or when she was talking to the boy. On the other hand I didn't think the "gross" scenes were too much, I thought they were too much in the same way that Lilja-4-Ever was too much... where they are too much but also appropriate whereas the other stuff just felt like forced artsiness, or too much of a MESSAGE kinda thing.

What does everybody think of this movie?

[Nemo_Me]

I thought it was brilliant. I mean it really showed me how sick it all is. How far reality Tv, the porn industry and simply a lot of people are willing to go for the sake of money, fame and the very distance dream of the grass always being greener on the other side.
I also like the fact that all the characters (or at least I think they are) two faced. Rickard is on the surface or at least pretending to be this hardcore porno movie director, but on the inside he's just a father that wants a better realationship with his son but has no idea how to and tries stupid things like taking him to a 'gun range'.
Eric just seems to everyone as this very depressed and lost young man, with his life always turned upside down, stuck with a sick so called family, and in the top of his teenage angst not to make it any better. But when you dig deeper you find out that he's really smart and has found amazing ways to survive his toxic inviroment. Also the things he says, about that world in the sea and all that, even though he barely steps out of his room he has all those beautiful ideas about the world that he has though never laid eyes on.
Geko, this guy that is always trying so hardcore, talking about how big his dick is and all that, just trying to prove that he is chocking in his own masculanity. But looking closer you see that he is only blowing smoke with that huge man ego of his and is really just a little lost man, who has no idea what happend to his life and made him do those things so he always pushes everything further than people want him to and in that way screws everything up even more. He is in a way the person that audience and Geko, Tess and Rickard expect Eric to be at first.
And Tess, my dear Tess. Like most of the people living with her in that duplex she plays it so hardcore 'I dreamed about being a porn star since I was a little girl.' But when she's with Eric something else happends, she turns back into the little girl, the girl that wasn't allowed to keep her innocence and was thrown in a world she had no idea how to handle.
Like with most of Moodysons projects I could babble about this for hours but I'm gonna give you all a rest for now.

[Spain_1]

Hi Nemo,

I have not already seen this film, but you really made me want to see it, looking forward to giving you my future opinion.

Thanks.

[JimmyC]

Did you see it yet Spain? I'd like to know your opinion!

[Spain_1]

Hi Jimmy, nice to hearing from you again,

I have some problems to get the “right” version, I have to admit that I’ve downloaded it in a non very legal way but only could get it in German and Swedish, deserved punishment without any doubt…….. Do you know a site where I could command it in an “understandable” language : Spanish, French, English, Russian…...?????

[Kolya]

http://www.zshare.net/download/holeinmy ... s-psd.html
These are the English subs. Rename the downloaded file's extension to *.srt


Still can't believe I sat through this movie... It was like something from a filmschool. I switched off my brain when I saw that boy's hand. He's not just the only decent person in the whole film and a dreamy dreamer - he's also a cripple! Hurray!

[edu]

Hi Spain, I had the same problem (we spanish-speaking people are usually left out), so I did a search for subtitles in spanish and I downloaded them. If you can't find an "understandable" version of the film, tell me (PM), and I'll send you the subtitles.

Ok, we'll share the punishment.

[Spain_1]

Hey Thanks Kolya,

I don't know how you all are able to get that amount of information concerning scripts, updates, reviews,....etc., etc.
In any case, a pleasure to get your background support.

edu wrote:
we spanish-speaking people are usually left out

YES¡¡¡¡, edu, I agree completely with you, this is not fair, we are always forgotten by the usual distribution networks, I think that we have won at least a little right to take our own revenge........and I'm sure that this won't be the last

[Spain_1]

Well…….Hummmmm……ejem…….¡¡¡¿¿¿¿¿?????,

How could I say it, maybe a bit too much for me?.
I found Lilya great, powerful and beautiful, but that one’s over the top.
I won’t deny there are interesting elements, but there is more suffering than pleasure in its viewing.

He shows us a world of physically and emotionally mutilated people, where the voice of reason (as always held by children) hides in the shadows and doesn’t want to see or to be human. Humanity is lost and passes naturally from joy to violence without any reason, continually searching what she lacks.
People deserve more our pity than our sentence. They all look for pleasing and be surrounded, a little of tenderness in the darkness.

It’s clear that he wanted to shock and disturb, maybe as with Lilya, but in this case I don’t find it is very cleverly done. The less we can say is that the film at some times is really disgusting.

It’s sure that if it wouldn’t be for his other films and for sharing these lines with you all, I would never have finished the movie.

I will wait some time before Containers.

[Kolya]

It's a simple, well meaning movie. The title tells it all. These people have a "hole" in their heart and try to fill it. Where there should be love and fantasy all they can think of is materialistic substitutes: Porn, drugs, food. It's about lost innocence ultimately. And the boy has to fix it for all of them.
But it's a bit naive and one-sided. For a start not every person acting like an asshole is missing a loving social environment or has been raped or something. People with a completely normal backgrounds can turn into savages. What Moodysson presents is just the typical explanation of his generation. And while it's a sympathetic view it's not always true.
And it's onesided because he never shows what sex, drugs and food can be: A positive, uplifting experience. I'm not saying Moodysson is a prude but his movie amounts to it.

It could have been a good movie if the boy had charmed the starlet halfway through and they ran away together. I can hear people screaming "Hollywood cliché!!!"
But I think Moodysson would have been able to pull this off in a non-cliché way. As an optimistic, pragmatic solution for problems that seemed overwhelming. Much like FA ends in fact.

Instead he rams home his single point again and again. He chose rickety handcameras to copy amateur-porn-style. And one-on-camera-sessions like in a container show ... As if that's something that people needed to see to understand what he's about! Instead of unmasking the artificiality that lurks behind the amateur porn and container shows he makes us endure them again.
He blurred out every damn brand instead of using non-branded props or creative camera work. And to top it all off he cuts in screaming noises and surgery clips.
It makes you want to scream at him that his movie is such a bad vehicle for the point he's trying to make.

Many people have said this here: Watching the movie you understand what he's getting at, that's not the problem. But you don't understand why he's had to make such a bad movie about it.

And I hope this time Kant won't jump at my throat saying how this is art and it doesn't have a message. Of course it's art. And maybe we can ignore the message. But then it's still very bad art.

It just makes me sad to see that the guy who made FA somehow couldn't cope with it's success or whatever. But I think Moodysson missed the turn where he should have gone back to writing poetry. Pottery is also nice.

[kant1781]

And I hope this time Kant won't jump at my throat saying how this is art and it doesn't have a message.

Boooooooohhh!!!!!!!

Don't worry Kolya.... I have no real opinion about this one. I should have to see it again before I judge. Maybe I'll jump later then...

[Kolya]

Haha, I'll wait for you then.

[kant1781]

Here I am. I always keep my promises, even if it's a bit late. I have just watched "Ett hål i mitt hjärta" completely and with due attention, and I'll have my say on it. Even though I feel a bit like talking into a void now. Maybe later generations of visitors some day will discover these age-old, forgotten debates...

I think "Hjärta" is a very good film. It's not mind-bogglingly brilliant or perfect. Like many people, I find some things in it overdone and a little bit crude and oversimplified. (For example, as was already pointed out, the boy's crippled hand just is completely superfluous.) Some of the more experimental parts don't work too well. Others however are very well done. I won't go into the details here. I guess everyone knows the bits she or he likes or dislikes the most. What I like is the complete absence of cheap socio-psychological explanation for the disturbing behaviour of its central characters. They form a microcosm with practically no connection to the outside, we get no idea at all who they are, where they come from or how they came to be the weirdos they are. This film portrays nothing but these four people who happen to have a completely destroyed social life. Some have called this "one-sidedness", but this seems besides the point. The film makes no suggestion that this is how we all are, or are in danger of becoming to be, or that this is what society in general is like. You could just as well complain that "Requiem for a Dream" was one-sided, because every single character in it is a drug-addict. But "Requiem" just happens to be a film (and a book) about addiction, so its characters are addicts. It doesn't need a justification and no excuses for that, and it doesn't have to "balance" its story with another one about people who use alcohol and tobacco sensibly. Similarly, "Hjärta" is a story about these four people with destroyed souls. Who would think that the writer/director thinks that all the world is like this? Who would need a plate in front of the camera saying "This film is not meant to deny that there are also people in this world with a positive sex-life"? What nonsense!

Now, to the part that I really want to point out. Some people are going to hate for what I say now. Others won't be surprised, as I have said similar things before; they'd rather complain that I can't think of something new. Anyway, here I go: I believe that Lukas Moodysson has never, in none of his films, been closer to the feeling and the subject matter of "Fucking Åmål" as in "Hjärta". I'd go so far as to say that "Hjärta" is nothing but a remake of FÅ. It is, however the Mordor version, where everything that is good and beautiful in the original has been twisted and tortured into an ugly caricature. And yet, it is recognizable, which is frightening, but also interesting and very rewarding. Try to see "Hjärta" as a version of Åmål where everything that goes well in FÅ goes wrong, or rather, has already gone wrong. It is overwhelmingly clear that Eric is in fact an Orkish version of Agnes - he's something that could have become of her without Elin and without a Pappa Olof to fall back on (and with Rickard instead). Tess is so obviously just another Elin, ten years older, who has downgraded her film star dreams to porn star dreams, but keeps ranting about just the old fantasies of getting out of here, no matter how, again and again. "Hjärta" is full of visual quotes and allusions to FÅ. If I had the time to produce some stills, I could prove it. There are some scenes where Eric is virtually just mimicking Agnes, and there's even the Moodysson trademark shot of Tess staring above a road bridge.

Failing to see this connection means failing to see how this is a real Moodysson feature, one that has in fact more to say about the things that we love FÅ for, one that is a variation on a theme of which FÅ is another variation. In the press conference about "Container", Moodysson was asked why he had changed his film-making so much. His answer was: "I haven't changed at all." I think most people regarded this as a kind of joke. I think it's the plain truth. If one sees it that way, one won't fall for the - I'm sorry, this must be said, even in the face of an otherwise very esteemed commentator who has written more intelligent things on FÅ than almost anybody - stupid idea that Moodysson did films like "Hjärta" and "Container" because he somehow couldn't cope with the success of his more accessible films. Why did the Beatles record "I Am the Walrus" or "Helter Skelter"? Because they couldn't cope with the success of "She Loves You, Yeah Yeah Yeah"?

[droopy]

Kant, I completely disagree with you. There is no single part of "remake" of FA in this film. One scene looks familiar - the bridge, but that's all. This film is about COMPLETELY different things than FA. There is no connection other than very extrapolated possible-things-that-can-happen-if-things-gone-wrong, which you could say is also in Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood.

Go, ask Moodysson if this is remake of FA, and he'll laught at you. It's nonsense.

[kant1781]

Thanks droopy for replying! Yes, of course „Hjärta“ is not a remake of FÅ in the literal sense. (I thought this to be obvious.) What I meant is that in part it’s a variation on the same theme. (And I say „in part“ because there may be other things in it too.) „Variation“ means that there are some things that are different, but some things that are the same. So ask Moodysson whether „Hjärta“ is a dark variation on the theme of "Fucking Åmål" and I’m ready to bet that he will not laugh.
Whoever sees him first shall ask him!

I disagree that the analogies between the two films are so trivial that they would apply to any film including Cinderella. They also go deeper than the superficial similarity between some images and camera angles. „Hjärta“, to me, is not so much about those two old farts doing their porn thing, it’s about Eric and Tess who try to survive in this toxic environment. Then, you have the darkish outsider who has no friends, listens to music nobody else listens to, hardly gets out, reads and talks strange poetry, and whose parents fail to make any connection. On the other side, you have the blonde sexbomb who knows how to party, is looking for orgiastic excess, and would do anything to escape from the boredom of her life and have her five minutes of fame, without any idea of how exactly to do it. Now take away the innocence and the sweetness of youth, take away the social backwaters of a more or less stable family and a school life, add some years, lots of disillusionment and social isolation, exchange „Bingo Lotto“ for „Big Brother“ and childhood partying for adult binge drinking and hardcore sex. What you get is pretty much the setting of „Hjärta“. Of course everything is different then! But it changes the picture if you realize that you can in fact recognize human beings in those seemingly freakish dehumanized ghosts. If you see that Tess is something that Elin could have become, and Eric something that Agnes could have become, had things gone wrong, this turns them from caricatures into characters. One can then maybe see more interesting things in „Hjärta“ than disgusting shock techniques or just a freak show.

You know, one thing that comparing „Hjärta“ with FÅ made me realize (just to give an example) is that it is very easy to cheer for the outsiders in FÅ. It’s very easy to relate to them, to feel for them, to identify with the outcasts, as long as they are so cute, so sweet, so adorable and intelligent as they are there. Everybody loves Agnes and Elin, everybody feels like »If I had been there, I would have been on their side, I would have been their friend!«, because that’s where we belong: We’re the good ones, aren’t we? We’re not like Camilla and her bunch!
But we all know that typically the outcasts don't look like Rebecka Liljeberg. What about our feelings if the outsiders turn really ugly and upsetting, if Agnes degenerates into Eric and Elin degenerates into Tess. Do we still try to understand them? Would we still want to be on their side? Or do we turn away in disgust? It’s harder to feel like the good guy if the mates on your side are not the two cutest girls of Sweden but just two unpleasant and crippled lost souls nobody would want to be seen with in public.