The Heart of the World (2000)

A scientist chooses a wealthy man over her two lovers but must heal the earth's core to save humanity.

Director:

Guy Maddin

Writer:

Guy Maddin

Stars:

Leslie Bais, Caelum Vatnsdal, Shaun Balbar

7 wins.

Cast

Cast overview:
Leslie Bais	...	Anna
Caelum Vatnsdal	...	Osip
Shaun Balbar	...	Nikolai
Greg Klymkiw	...	Akmatov (as Hryhory Yulyanovitch Klymkyiev)

Storyline

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. She discovers that the world is dying of heart failure and only has one more day remaining. Meanwhile, Akmatov, a bloated, capitalist bureaucrat lusts after Anna and tries to make her fall into her bed.

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Plot Keywords:

heart | heart failure | actor | surrealism | avant garde | 

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Genres:

Short

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Canada

Language:

None

Release Date:

7 October 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

I kardia tou kosmou

Filming Locations:

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

6 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

References/parodies soviet montage cinema of the 1920s, German Expressionism of the 1920s, and silent melodrama film.

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Connections

Featured in Celluloid Dreams (2002)

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Soundtracks

Time, Forward
Written by Georgi Sviridov (as Giorgi Sviridov)
With permission from the Sviridov Foundation and Meloydiya © 1968

User Reviews

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

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.