Doomed Love (1984) Poster

(1984)

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6/10
interesting but not for everyone.
mbs27 August 2010
Very intoxicating film while watching it.

Its been about a week since I saw it--and even tho i've more or less forgotten most of it--i remember full well being very enthralled by it while it was unreeling.

Film is about this professor who decides to hang himself because he can't get over the loss of the love of his life. He fails in his first attempt and ends up intriguing the female orderly at the hospital where he ends up. The woman is newly married--and still very much in love with her husband--but she's very clearly intrigued by the fact that this guy was so in love with his wife that he couldn't live without her.

The movie is not done in a straight forward style tho--the dialog is heavily repetitive and very stylized--the actors keep speaking not so much in dialog as much in circular speeches and platitudes. (some poetic, some not so much) Its the biggest obstacle towards enjoying the movie of course---even if it sounds like it could be interesting--if you're put off by circular would be poetic speaking--you're not gonna like this one.

Personally i thought it was interesting enough and with a short enough running time that said style of dialog doesn't wear out its welcome as fast as it would were this thing like 100 minutes or so. (its only about 75) Like i said its an interesting one if you ever come across it--or if its ever screening at an art-house near you.

For The Record--Charles Ludlum (or Ludham or however you spell it) appears only very briefly in the film--he appears as a magician in an infomercial on TV alongside Black Eyed Susan as his sidekick---they sing about the existence of illusions or something--i forgot already--but its only a minute) Ah yes I forgot to mention the characters periodically break out into song as well---some would say this is because what they're feeling is so deep that it can only be expressed through the power of song. I would say there should be more depressing musicals! Depression is as deep a feeling to feel that you can only express it via song right? i mean why wouldn't it be?
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Ostranenie soap opera might appeal to a very patient few.
EyeAskance8 July 2018
Following a failed suicide attempt, a wearied professor is drawn into the lives of a young couple who want to help him overcome the pain of a love long lost.

The uncomplicated storyline at hand becomes the pith of an experimental film so wayward and prepensely dissociative in its presentation that it challenges any sort of customary critical assay. Characters stand nearly motionless while delivering staggered, fragmentary dialog(often simultaneously) in a deliberately vacant manner stripped of inflection and expression. A number of twee musical interludes are realized with a similarly detached flatness.The sets are mostly comprised of colorless backdrops and two-dimensional foreground standees, hand painted in defiance of representational depth, scale, and symmetry.

Inasmuch as DOOMED LOVE is admirably unexampled, it's likely to be an uphill climb for any but the most ardent habitué of challenging art cinema. I did initially find it somewhat interesting in concept/composition, but it wasn't long before boredom took a seat beside me. 5/10
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