A Hole in My Heart (2004)IMDB LinkThis is strange. “A Hole in my Heart” is the kind of movie where a talented, young director would make it has his debut, get the attention of the critics and audience, and then go ahead and make better, more controlled films such as “Fucking Amal”.
So, what is this movie doing, years after his acclaimed movies such as “Fucking Amal” and “Lilja 4-eva”.
It has the trappings of a very amateur, debut movie, from a talented director. Filmed on a digital camera? Check. Few characters, check. Shocking material, check. Philosophizing, inner monologues, strange soundtrack, all check. It does still work, but it is not a direction a filmmaker should be heading.
“A Hole in my Heart” is the story of a dysfunctional group of people involved in the home porn industry. There is the porn director/actor, the muscled guy who is mostly involved in the sex scenes, the girl, and the porn director’s son, a long-haired, pale, goth boy. I don’t know what you think the movie will be like based on the previous sentence, but you are almost certainly wrong.
The movie isn’t about the porn business, but it seems about the need for companionship, and the need for people to connect, in any circumstances.
Actually, wait, it is really difficult to describe any of this, because the reader will still get the wrong impression. So, instead of talking about the meaning of the movie, and want makes it work, let me instead be a dick, and talk about the things which everyone will mention anyway.
And that is the ewww-factor. Because there is a lot of ewww-factor. This movie will make you like porn less, because of how un-erotic it makes it to be. There are random clips of a vagina operation, which is what the porn actress had done, to reduce her labia. And holy fucking shit, is that disgusting. A few more footage of vagina slicing and dicing, and I’d almost certainly turn gay.
Anyway, the movie works. I’d probably agree to any criticism the movie gets, but still, there is something about it that makes it work. Whether it is the ability of the director to make it, at times, still touching and reflective of the human condition, or it is ability to insert random clips and sound effects that keep us on our toes.
Still, I’ll never look at porn the same way again.
(Or will I??? Stay tuned.)
3/5
