imichelet Review of Straight for the Heart

Straight for the Heart (1988)

When photography is no more used to witness, but to explore...

[8/10 · 14 January 2006]

Montreal -80s. A Pulitzer-winning reporter comes back home to Montreal, profoundly shocked by the horrors he has seen in Central America and doubting the values of a job that is powerless to change the realities it witnesses. The only thing that kept him afloat through this ordeal was the idea of home, and the man and the woman whom he loves dearly and with whom he has been sharing his life for the last 10 years. But they are gone. 'At the beginning, explains the man, we were three even when you were not physically here. Then we realized that we were two even when you were actually with us'. The reporter then starts a photographic report on his city. Click click click, each photo shows us an aspect of Montreal, a mood of the photographer, who goes deeper and deeper in the city, in his own heart, until he finds himself… Profoundly genuine and moving, this double journey within a city and within a man's soul using still photographs is a fantastic idea. A great movie.