A Hole In My Heart

Claustrophobic and unpleasant, A Hole In My Heart follows the plotless adventures of four characters in a tiny apartment – a pornographer, his son, and two actors. The film’s been written and directed by Lukas Moodysson, who throws virtually every rule of cinema out the window for the sole purpose of shocking the audience. It’s Moodysson’s bizarre experimental touches – using Barbie dolls to act out certain sequences, assaulting us with discordant noises, etc – that prevent us from actually becoming involved with the film’s events; we’re constantly being reminded that this is just a movie, and generally in the most jarring way imaginable. Moodysson doesn’t seem to realize the difference between a film that’s disturbing yet provocative, and a film that’s just amateurish and gross. In terms of the latter, the director repeatedly cuts to extreme close-ups of genital surgery – a baffling decision that even Moodysson himself would be hard-pressed to defend. It’s a shame, really; the acting is actually fairly strong, while the film’s premise certainly isn’t terrible. But instead of focusing on the characters, Moodysson would rather have horribly pointless sequences such as the one that finds someone vomiting into the mouth of another. What’s the point?

no stars out of ****