The Heart of the World (2000) User Reviews

Kino-therapy..

[nikhil7179 · 9/10 · 27 February 2007]

Equal parts German Expressionism and Russian Agit-prop, Heart of the World is a six minute epic of Biblical proportions.

Maddin's usual idiosyncrasies resurface - Scandinavian Love triangle Melodrama amidst impending social catastrophe.

Being from the Tarkovskian school of thought, an ASL (average shot length) of under 2 seconds would normally be scoffed at, but an exception will have to be made in this case, as the rapid-cutting is truly elevated to an art form here.

The music is appropriately over-the-top and compliments the film perfectly.

One of the wittiest, most inventive short films ever.

6 fast minutes

[anthrakas · 9/10 · 28 January 2004]

This movie tells more in 6 minutes than a feature film. The fast action and the style, the music, the narrative stays in your mind, it accompanies you for days! You wonder if you can stop blinking for the duration of the film in case you manage to take in more and more!

I am about to go and watch it again, yes! and I can't wait!

I'll write no more, don't want to spoil it for you...

KINO KINO KINO

A Brilliant Homage of the 1920s

[gavin6942 · 8/10 · 10 March 2013]

Nikolai, a mortician, and Osip, an actor playing Christ in a play, are brothers in love with the same woman. Anna, a state scientist and said woman, is in love with both brothers and studies the Earth's core, the very heart of the world.

I loved every frame of this film from start to finish, and loved the way writer-director Guy Maddin smoothly blended a Soviet film theme with makeup and designs reminiscent of German expressionism (particularly "Metropolis"). Using the word "kino" was a nice touch to mix the two, as kino is the word for cinema in both Russia and Germany...

The hectic pace draws you in, and while the running time is short, it is enough for you to understand the world Maddin is working in and to know who Anna is. Perhaps I did not completely grasp the symbolism of the Christ figure or the phallic parts, but this in no way lessened my enjoyment.

Brilliant, distinctive, utterly original!

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 10/10 · 11 June 2004]

Guy Maddin is the most brilliant film-maker working today! If there's somebody better, that person must be labouring in obscurity. Maddin is strongly influenced by the disciplines of silent film, but his vision is unique, distinctive, and utterly original.

'The Heart of the World' could easily have been a throwaway film, given the circumstance of its origin. The Toronto Film Festival commissioned Maddin to make a brief film to fill a gap in their programming schedule. A mere time-passer. What Maddin gave them was utterly unexpected.

Maddin uses large-grain film stock and Klieg-style lighting techniques to replicate the look of silent film. Maddin's production design (costumes, makeup, hairstyling) impeccably recreates the images of that period. It's easy to believe that 'Heart of the World' is actually compiled from old UFA out-takes, circa 1925. Only just occasionally does Maddin's grasp on the 1920s show the joins, and then those lapses are probably intentional.

'The Hearts of the World' depicts the rivalry of two brothers. Nikolai is an idealist engineer. Osip is playing Jesus Christ in a passion play, and seems to have developed a genuine messiah complex. Amusingly, Osip does his Jesus routine whilst toting a cross made from metal girders ... an Art Deco crucifixion!

The brothers vie for the love of Anna, a beautiful scientist who has built a device which enables her to gaze into the Earth's core, literally the heart of the world. Meanwhile, a bloated plutocrat named Akmatov lusts for Anna. All of this is explained in silent-film titles, in a 1920s typeface that looks vaguely Cyrillic. The actors employ authentic silent-film acting techniques while resisting the temptation to 'guy' those methods or exaggerate them. The only lapse occurs when Anna suddenly vibrates her eyes back and forth while attempting to choose between the two brothers. This seems to be Maddin's intentional parody of silent-film acting. For the rest of the film, his homage to the past is sincere.

I spent a delightful six minutes trying to spot all the references and influences in this movie. Maddin is clearly influenced by 'Metropolis' (my favourite film), but I also spotted the influences of 'Aelita', 'Vampyr', 'Potemkin' and 'Haxan' in this frenzied melange. This is not to accuse Maddin of plagiarism. He displays his influences openly, using them as a foundation for a vision uniquely his own. It's refreshing to see a 21st-century filmmaker who acknowledges a debt to silent films, in an industry filled with Tarantino wanna-bes and counterfeit Hitchcocks.

'The Heart of the World' is one of the most distinctive, exciting and exhilarating movies I have ever seen. No doubt of it: I rate this movie 10 out of 10, and I look forward to more work by this filmmaker whose work is at once utterly alien yet enticingly accessible.

Pumping

[tedg · 17 July 2006]

There aren't many artists who are also filmmakers. I suppose part of the problem is that there just aren't that many true artists, never were. I'm talking about people who know the limits of the world, have the tools and commitment to go there and gather magical shards, then come back and use them to cut my tethers.

I'm talking about neither skillful entertainment nor novel decorators of ordinary ideas.

And there are vastly fewer artists making films. Real artists, real films. I have three living that I particularly value: Medem, Wong, Greenaway. But Greenaway is off experimenting in other media at the moment and may be lost, his two greatest collaborators gone and interest in the drugs of narrative waning. I may replace him with Maddin.

It isn't just that the man has an incredible facility with a broader cinematic vocabulary than others. Its that he is able to connect that intuitively to deeper adventures in being and the internal stays that keep our emotional skin from collapsing.

Now to my mind, there's a world of difference between mastering the short form in film — which this is — and the long form. The long form is required for soulchange. It just takes that long for our minds to encircle themselves to strangle the unwanted. But holy cow, what a short form project this is. Since this, I know only two Maddin projects: "Saddest" and "Dracula," and each of them are something I would get my best friend out of bed and travel across the state to see.

This probably won't stick because it is so brief. But it is such rush! Every element in it has either no floor or sits on poles so high you can't see down. His stories are all similar, but no matter because they are irrational, overloaded with contradiction, self-destructive and yet cartoonish. They are — like his images — apparently borrowed from the past and simply pasted, like a child's assembly of magazine photos.

But nothing is borrowed, really. All his ethers are wholly called from his own dreams and merely and loosely wear somewhat familiar costumes.

The main deal here is conflict between a man who is a mortician/military politician (with a penis-cannon) and his brother, an actor who plays Christ deeply enough to convince himself. The two vie for sex with the planet — there's an amazing segment you won't forget where the woman-world in question impregnates herself, and bears... guess.

Cinema! Usually I comment on how clever the folding in a film is. In this case, the folding of the Christ-play is a weapon that is used against the woman in the name of wooing her. Just that one, that one notion is enough to advise you not to miss this.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Fantastically Furious!!

[ohthree-1 · 10/10 · 30 July 2002]

The first time I saw this movie end, I knew I had to immediately watch it again. It moves so fast that you only get tantalizing hints of what actually happens with the first viewing, so you want to watch it again and again. The cinematography is nothing short of amazing, with homages to film greats and displaying visionary originality that earned it a top spot in so many critic's Top 10's.

Everything about this film, from the grainy textures to the the set and costumes, reflects Maddin's unstoppable freight train of weird and cool. Strong casting choices also made the movie much more than your average short, proving that five and a half minutes is plenty of time to tell an intricate and beautiful story. This will be a hard one to knock out of MY Top 5. Watch, rinse, repeat.

Six Minutes That I will Never Forget

[Galina_movie_fan · 10/10 · 12 March 2012]

Few weeks ago I wrote about the last year's biggest and "quietest" black and white silent movie-surprise "The Artist" - "the most charming, original and unexpected" movie of 2011. It is true about the last year but for me, The most original, joyful, and truly unexpected film-homage to the silent era since few days ago has become the six minutes long stunner "the Heart of the World" (2000) from the Canadian auteur, Guy Maddin, which he wrote and made for 2000 Toronto Film Festival. "The Heart of the World" has been named by many critics the best Canadian short film. Watching it for the first time, it was the experience that I can only compare to watching few years ago for the first time Dali's -Buñuel's' "Un Chien Andalou"/"The Andalusian Dog" and Chris Marker's La Jetee/The Pier. All three short films left the long lasting impression and became my favorites.

Since the first time, I've already watched "the Heart of the World", perhaps dozens of times. Each time the beating of its "Kino"-heart made my heart pump the blood faster. I am not exaggerating. The energy and rhythm of the images changing rapidly and creatively to the innovative, magnificent score by the Soviet composer Georgiy Sviridov "Time Forward", have some hypnotizing power of physical and emotional impacts.

This film which took only five days to finish is a wonderful homage, dedication to, summation, and the parody of many kinds of early filmmaking. First, should be mentioned the French visionary, and the "alchemist of light" Georges Méliès whose legendary "A Trip to the Moon" (1902) made Gay Maddin forever fell in love with the old movies from the youth of the cinema. Maddin also found deeply symbolic that his and Méliès ' initials (GM) are the same, and it was one of the reasons for Maddin to have chosen his way in creating uniquely complex yet entertaining and deliciously weird films using the old techniques thus bringing together the past and presence of film medium.

Maddin's interest to the early Russian silent filmmaking, specifically, the propaganda films from the early twenties, the works of Sergei Eisenstein, Yakov Protazanov, and Dzega Vertov is also on the full display in "The Heart of the World". I recognized the shots reminding me of Battleship Potemkin, Ivan the Terrible, and Aelita. But there is more; for example, the German expressionism - Metropolis by Fritz Lang and without doubt Luis Bunuel whom Maddin names as his prime inspiration, especially the early surrealistic gem, Golden Age. The final of "The Heart... is pure Ingmar Bergman's Persona, with the shot of the cameraman behind the camera and then the sound of camera running while the film is over and the screen turns black.

Only six minutes long, the little film pays tribute to the very popular in the past science fiction genre with a brilliant if slightly mad scientist as the main character. It also tells the complete story of love, passion, lust, greed, making the wrong choices and willingness to self-sacrifice for the benefits of the humankind. Yes, it is all here, and it ends with the fascinating statement from its creator that "Kino" (cinema) is the new better heart of the world. This is the message from the true film lover-director to the film lovers everywhere in the world.

And you know what? I am going to watch it again right now.

The most Intense and disturbing

[basilica · 10/10 · 3 September 2004]

6 minutes of my movie viewing life. I was amazed at the emotional impact of this short, the music, editing, visuals and subject matter all combine to make this a masterpiece of cinema...and it is a black and white, silent film at that. Just as satisfying as INTOLERANCE. To some and maybe the casual viewer this may come across as a cheap and quickly thrown together film, but with repeated viewings, you can see the care and time that Maddin lavished on this production, the pace is frantic and actually leaves you gasping for breath...and thinking what did I just see! A highly recommended film and one to include in a library of important and significant works of art cinema.

Exceptionally well done but not exactly a fun ride

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 12 March 2008]

This film is very well made and I was impressed by much of it. However, I would assume that at least 95% of the public would hate the film if they saw it--probably even more! That's because all the bizarre and surrealistic elements make a lot of sense to a film historian or someone who loves German or Soviet silent Expressionistic film--so this makes for a very narrow audience indeed!! THE HEART OF THE WORLD appears as if it were made in the 1920s and at first I thought it was made from clips from old movies. However, instead I soon realized that the film actually was imitating such films as METROPOLIS, THE CABINET OF CALIGARI, NOSFERATU, ZEMLYA and even THE KING OF KINGS (among others)--with a very strong emphasis on METROPOLIS. There were also some amazingly unusual phallic images interspersed throughout the film that made me laugh. This, combined with an appropriately stirring and bizarre musical score made for a very skilled picture indeed.

The problem with this film, though, is that even if the work shows great skill, who is going to watch it? I understood the film and psychological references and could appreciate it...but I also didn't particularly enjoy it and would hate a steady diet of this sort of filming. It's probably only of interest to a small and select few.

Fascinating, poetic and extremely intense art.....!!!!

[Herr Nosferatu · 9/10 · 19 April 2001]

I saw this film on TV, and perhaps it wasn't the best medium to do so...

But, nonetheless, I was shocked and thrilled about this film...

The tone reminded me of Fritz Lang's opus, Metropolis.

The speeding music hits the viewers like a freight train... Rigorously brought on screen with the strong visual sequences..

This is truly what art stands for...

yes!

[black_hound_13 · 10/10 · 4 March 2012]

If you love art, and if you love film, then you must love this! It is 6 minutes of 'essential' cinema. Maddin's career has many moments of brilliance but nowhere does he get it so right, so often, over such a short duration. Compacted brilliance. It's arch. It's camp. It's kitsch. It's crazy. It is. And it isn't. Wonderfully.

You can sketch an outline but it's really pretty pointless. Narrative blows itself out of the water. The thrills are all subterranean. The asylum is rocking tonight!

As with the best of Maddin's work, even when he collapses into hopelessly camp, I often find his failures more interesting and indicative than others great successes. It's the apotheosis of amateur film-making.

Don't let the professionals win. Vote with your heart.

Metropolis gone bland

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 10 September 2015]

"The Heart of the World" is a 6.5-minute black-and-white short film from 15 years ago. The writer and director is the very prolific Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin. And not only the lack of color is a clear indicator that this was very much inspired by the German silent film classic "Metropolis". Another hint would be the "heart" in the film#s title. Unfortunately, the execution is very shoddy here. It is really nothing more than a weak copy packed into less than 7 minutes. Are we supposed to care which of the two guys she picks? Well. we do not even know them. Why would we care. And why does the action go into another direction completely in the second half of the film here. It's all way to fast to understand what is going on. I guess if that is the case you could always say this is an experimental movie, but this genre especially needs a strong personal touch from the filmmaker and this is obviously not the case with all the "Metropolis" references in here. Pretty weak film. Style over substance. Not recommended and I am baffled by the movie's popularity and high rating.

Amazing; one of the most radical and imaginative short films that I've ever seen

[ThreeSadTigers · 26 June 2008]

Pure fantasia, a race to save the world from a fatal heart attack, juxtaposed against a love rivalry between two brothers - a mortician and an actor playing Christ - for the heart of a scientist studying the earth's core. Whether or not there's any kind of deeper interpretation is hard to tell, with the film racing along in an almost stream-of-consciousness approach, as expressionist cinema conventions are cast against elements of Soviet propaganda films in Maddin's typically exciting and an anachronistic style. Although vague and enigmatic, there is a definite story here; one that is relatively easy to follow if we pay close attention to the incredibly quick cuts and barrage of on-screen information, as references to Metropolis (1927) and Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864) are combined with the director's intuitive sense of visual abstraction, humour and satire, whilst also featuring an almost heartfelt approach to its characters, even in such an exceedingly short-form.

At this point in time, I'm still something of novice to the films of Guy Maddin, though I have seen the vast majority of his short films and would rate them from good to excellent. Like the rest, The Heart of the World (2000) is worth watching more than once in order to pick up all of the information being offered to us in the continual bombardment of overwhelming and fascinating imagery and fragments of captivating narrative, whilst also standing as a simply astounding piece of film-making in the most basic sense. A masterful combination of wit, imagination, style, content and pure cinematic ability, in which the saviour of the world turns out to be none other than cinema itself.

Six short but brilliant minutes...

[jluis1984 · 8/10 · 5 July 2006]

Canadian director Guy Maddin is an artist who has made himself a name thanks to his highly inventive and original short films. His artistic sensibility and great eye for the visual have produced several award winning films that showcase a great surrealist mind and a big (altbeit a bit bizarre) love for early films. "The Heart of the World" is a short, but very powerful example of Maddin's style of film-making and despite its 6 minutes runtime, it conveys more emotions than many feature length films.

"The Heart of the World" is the story of Anna (Leslie Bais), a scientist who invents a device to look at the Earth's core, literally, the Heart of the World. As this happens, two brothers battle for Anna's heart: Nikolai (Shaun Balbar) the mortician, and Osip (Caelum Vatnsdal), an actor who plays Jesus. The two of them continually try to win Anna's favors while a lustful bureaucrat named Akmatov (Greg Klymkiw) tries to make Anna fall in his bed. Things get complicated when Anna discovers that the world is going to die soon.

Using the style of early 1920s silent films, Maddin manages to tell his story without trouble and at the same time, creating emotions thanks to its powerful visuals and to the expressive acting of the cast. Maddin mimics/parodies the exaggerated acting of the silent era, and the dreamlike images of German expressionism (specially reminiscent of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis") with so much care that a casual viewer may be fooled by his technique.

Void of any sound (except for the music), the film uses images only to tell the story, and its surrealist composition successfully creates an haunting atmosphere that increases the emotion of the already intense film. The acting is superb, and the cast capture the essence of the silent era acting with great believability. Fans of silent films will definitely like it.

"The Heart of the World" is a moving, very intense and powerful short film that displays Maddin's style at its best. Guy Maddin is without a doubt a talent to follow, and someone who really uses the language of film to create something more than stories. 8/10

brilliant, earth shattering cinema!

[framptonhollis · 9/10 · 20 February 2017]

There is something uniquely poetic and beautiful hidden within this seemingly messy montage of madness. Despite its nauseating and fast paced style, it is not only extremely watchable, but also extremely brilliant and entertaining. It is like an art film made my a mad man that has no boundaries when it comes to insane stylistic choices. It is an unpredictable little masterpiece that will make your mind think as much as it will make it confused. It has elements of humor, horror, romance, action, sci-fi, and fantasy and its all just 6 minutes! It is a film of every genre and of no genres, a film that is at times nonsensical, at others admirably intelligent and witty. Its wacky and wonderful, a brief cinematic epic that is creative and utterly brilliant. Guy Maddin uses his disorienting yet beautiful style to a point of both insanity and whimsy. If you can stand the style, this is an unskippable and truly unique work of art that must be seen to be believed.

Not what I expected

[mrsmanca · 10/10 · 18 August 2002]

I had never heard of Guy Maddin before I saw this short, and still haven't bothered to see any of his other movies, but Heart Of The World was an excellent movie. I think any longer and it would have been too much, as it goes very fast, but I liked what I saw.

Greatest Canadian film ever made

[MikeR-22 · 10/10 · 1 March 2003]

All the money that is wasted in Canada every year on worst self-indulgent, introspective, pseudo intellectual fake art films on the planet and one six-minute film schools the whole horrible mess for the rubbish it is. This is a gem - see it whatever you do and avoid everything else from Canada.

An excellent short film.

[brianberta · 9/10 · 2 June 2022]

This is my second time watching this short and it's just as great as I remember it being. This time around, I appreciated the unique style of pacing of this short quite a bit more. The short moves at an incredibly fast clip and the story, editing, and music work in harmony at giving it this unique feel. In spite of the short only lasting 6 minutes, quite a lot happens story-wise which is squeezed into that timeframe. While doing this can often lead to the work in question suffering from a lack of breathing room though, I didn't feel that with this short since it remained easy to follow from beginning to end. The editing also contributes to this short's unique pacing (from what I read, the average shot in this film lasts for about two seconds). Finally, that the music moves at a fast clip as well further contributes to this feel. I also give this short credit for how it captures the feel of a silent film pretty well. I've seen a handful of films which simply put on a black and white filter, mute the sound, and consider that to be sufficient, but this short goes a couple steps further by adopting the unique framing and grainy/scratched film stock which is commonly found in silent films. The only thing Maddin might've forgotten about was the aspect ratio, but whatever. He still got more right than wrong. I wouldn't say I have any issues with this short, though while the ending is certainly surprising, I'm not sure how to interpret it. I may have responded better to a more grounded ending. Who knows. Regardless, this is still a great short film which I'm glad I rewatched.

Brutally Clever

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 5 April 2019]

The recreation of mid-1920's film is amazing. We are brought into a world where two men, both quite odd, vie for the love of a woman scientist. Her specialty: the earth's core. She is aware that the earth is about to have a heart attack. What can she do. Should she choose one of the men. But a rich man comes and takes her. There is a honeymoon period where she realizes she has made a bad decision. These short films are so wonderful because the filmmaker seems to be able to be true to himself or herself. This is superb.

Astonishing, fascinating short film from Guy Maddin

[ametaphysicalshark · 11 February 2009]

As with all of Guy Maddin's films, "The Heart of the World" left me, well, speechless. I'm rarely insightful, usually articulate, but I can never write well about a Guy Maddin film. That Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote a whole essay on this film is not surprising, but it does leave me in awe. A wacky narrative featuring the usual Maddin love triangle, this is six and a half minutes of pure joy. The genius of "The Heart of the World" isn't its wackiness or the technical and stylistic qualities of the film, it's that it's not a bit of showboating, but a fascinating experimental success- what Maddin has done is made a whole feature in six minutes. Most short films are short because that's how they were written, that's how much material the filmmakers had and wanted to make. "The Heart of the World" could have easily been a feature. In fact, it has a more interesting 'plot' than a couple of Maddin's actual features (especially "Brand Upon the Brain!" for me). Rosenbaum suggests this might be the world's first 'subliminal melodrama'. That's a better description than I could come up with. I watched the movie twice in a row but I have a feeling I'll be watching it many, many more times. I absolutely loved this film, but not enough to eclipse "Elimination Dance" as my favorite Canadian short, though "The Heart of the World" is almost unquestionably the greater accomplishment. I prefer Maddin's features "My Winnipeg" and "Careful" to this, but again, it's the staggering accomplishment of this film that makes it so worthy of awe. How many filmmakers have done montage better?

Amazing short film

[North-3 · 2 December 2000]

Fans of Guy Maddin should check out this new short film. If you thought his previous short film Odilon Redon was an excellent film, The Heart Of The World tops it.

The pacing is frantic, the storyline is the classic love triangle that Guy loves working with, the setting is heavily influenced by Soviet imagery. Even the editing style is very similar to that of Eisenstein.

What also makes this film work very well is the accompanying Soviet music entitled Time, Forward.

Whereas Guy's recent longer narratives have failed (The Hands of Ida, and Twilight Of The Ice Nymphs), his shorts films just keep getting better and better.

Visually impressive, otherwise I was lost

[bob the moo · 28 January 2004]

A scientist of the state, Anna, discovers that the world is under threat as it's heart is breaking. While two brothers battle for her heart, Anna is distracted by the attentions of the capitalist Akmatov with his chest of gold. Can Anna focus in time to save the world?

I'll be up front and say that I would really need to see this film again to give it a totally fair review, but I didn't have the chance. When I watched this film I was in a small pub at a showing as part of 7' Cinema and it was very crowded and I was trying to buy a drink as it was showing. For this reason I didn't really get into the substance of the film and found it difficult to connect with.

Visually though, the film is very slick and very impressive. I found it difficult to totally get into because I felt it was referencing a genre that I am not aware of. Despite this I still found it to be very slick and enjoyable. The film looks genuine yet exaggerates the visuals to good effect, even if I felt it lacked the substance that others saw in it.

Overall this is polished, slick and enjoyably stylish. The mark of a good film is that you are ready to see it again as soon as it finishes - with this I felt that way, even if not for the best of reasons.