A Hole in My Heart (2004/2005) (AKA
Ett Hal i mitt hjarta)
"A Hole in My Heart" is a film that
will stick with you for a long time. For the adventurous
in cinematics, for the thoughtful, I say only this:
See it. You will be moved, shocked, disgusted, awed,
broken, tortured and then made whole again. You need
to know nothing more than the fact that this is an
amazing film, unlike any other, and you must see it.
For the timid and the weak, there
is nothing more to say except: Don't go. This is not
a film for you.
Now, for those of you who have seen
the film, you must be as eager as I am to discuss
it. Since we have both seen it, there is no need for
me to warn you that my discussion here will give away
much of the movie.
"A Hole in My Heart" is about life.
And death. It's about the meaning of life and the
meaninglessness of existence. Director Lukas Moodysson
has created a film, seemingly nearly improvised with
his amazing and daring cast, that tells us that life
is shit. And yet, in the midst of all this shit, there
is hope. Well, at least, there is something. There
can be an oasis of hope, of humanity, of redemption.
His characters are the most scarred
and scared people one can imagine. The center of this,
the angel, is Eric, played perfectly by Bjorn Almroth.
Eric has a deformed hand and seems to be friendless.
He lives like a hermit in his father's filthy apartment
and considers himself an alien. (It is odd and interesting
that the most human and humane character here feels
like an alien).
His father, Rickard, is a deplorable
and debauched human being who makes amateur porno
tapes in the apartment and tries to get Eric out of
his room to help shoot them. Sanna Brading is Tess,
a wounded and vulnerable young woman who has been
so often scared by men that she has adopted the attitude
of a slut, presenting herself as a sexual deviant,
whore and porn star. And then there's Geko, a young
immigrant who acts as stud. He is as wounded as Eric,
as scared as Tess, as debauched as Rickard.
For over 90 minutes, we watch a
day pass in the apartment where Rickard films Tess
and Geko in several sexual situations. Rickard himself
joins in. The debauched orgy of human degradation
that takes place before our eyes seems endless. When
the pornographic sex has played out its usefulness,
the situation denigrates into a rape scenario that
is as repulsive as it is shocking. We too, like Brading's
Tess, are so blown out of our minds that we cannot
tell what is real and what is make-believe any more.
The violence escalates until Eric is forced to come
out of his room and put an end to it. Like God, like
the voice of reason, like an angel, he appears, and
suddenly Tess is able to extricate herself from the
horror.
Her respite is short lived and she
comes back soon bearing a grocery cart full of food.
As Kurt Vonnegut once suggested, the pornography of
the future will be films about people eating magnificent
feasts and his prognostication becomes a reality with
this film. The food orgy that occurs here is nearly
as revolting and degrading than the rape scene. The
depravity finally ends with the most revolting act
of all. Geko vomits into Tess' mouth. The effect is
mortifying. The image is perverse, putrid, devastating.
Is it frightening to admit that
many of the sexual scenarios here are based in fantasies
one has had? The reality of the film is that this
may be so for many viewers, particularly males. Haven't
we all fantasized about being in pornography, playing
at rape, using food in an orgy, and golden showers?
All of these are in this film. Moodysson films the
piece in cinema-verite, pushing his video camera close
to all the disgusting acts, making them not sexual
and titillating but horrific and vulgar. The effect
is bombastic and overpowering. This is the challenge
of the film to the viewer. Moodysson is relentless,
unforgiving, using the camera to rape our eyes. Forcing
us to cringe in disgust.
In this film, the apartment becomes
the world. The acts of sexual violence and degradation
that occur are the shit of life. In fact, it's hard
to believe that Moodysson didn't have his cast shit
and cum in this film. He forces them, as well as us,
to wallow in this putrid horror. But his intentions
are honorable. He wants us to confront not only our
fantasies, but the psychological implications of such
fantasies. Think it would be fun to have rough sex?
Witness the disgusting rape and torture scene in this
film (taking place amongst friends - sexual partners
- who have filmed a porn together). Witness the rape
of a whore and a porn star. It is still rape. It is
still putrid. It is still deplorable.
Amidst all of this degradation and
horror, there is the angel Eric. Asexual, deformed,
quiet, alien, hermetic, humane... Eric is the only
sign of hope in the film. It is his moments, juxtaposed
against the violence, the rape and the regurgitation
that makes the film have any hope at all.
Almroth is simply amazing in this
role. God, you can't help but fall in love with him.
You can't help but feel that being in his arms is
the only safe place left in the world. He is the redemption.
He is the mother/father. He is the voice of hope and
of reason. Is it surprising that Moodysson picks a
teenage boy to frame this character? It rings much
more honest than any other choice might because we
expect a teenage boy to be titillated and interested
in the pornographic and violent happenings in his
apartment. Eric is not.
Moodysson has crafted a film like
no other. Seemingly using one camera and creating
a film in cinema-verite, he cuts his film together
in a succession of non-stop images of violence and
dread coupled with sparse moments of calm and reason
in Eric's room, the oasis in the apartment. Moodysson's
camera also comes to be used as a confessional as
Eric and his father speak to us with nightvision utilized.
Eric, in this way, appearing green with vibrant eyes,
looks other-wordly and alien. It is here, in the confessional
of darkness, illuminated so only we can see him, that
Eric opens his soul to us, invites us into his world.
It is here where we grow to love him.
Moodysson intercuts this story,
the magic of Eric's heart, the horror and shit of
life, with scenes from the movie played out with dolls
(who are eventually burned to death), with scenes
of the actors here using a fake yet utterly realistic
vagina and asshole made of latex which is also exposed
and violated (making this film not as pornographic
as if he used a real woman but somehow even more disgusting
and deplorable - a genius move), and with grotesque
scenes of a surgical procedure where a woman has her
clitoris altered. Moodysson rams one disgusting scene
after another down our throat. He takes this image
of the vagina and turns it into meat, into graphic
medical imagery. We are scarred.
Moodysson also blurs product labels
and people's faces in this film. While one might assume
that this is simply a legal obligation as most products
and people wouldn't want to be associated with the
film, Moodysson seems to make it more than just that.
In the middle of this debauched and disquieting film,
the sex, the body parts, the violence, the rape, the
orgies of blood and gluttony are not blurred for us.
We are forced to watch such horror. We are in a world
where shit is all that we see. We are in hell. Other
people and corporate products are protected from this
repugnance. We are not. The irony is palpable.
And the director also plays with
sound in new and interesting ways. Eric, at one point,
listens to a song that seems to be a endless loop
of vinyl record scratches and pops turned into a tune
that is simply amazing. It sets the audible tone (no
pun intended) of the entire picture. Throughout, there
will be loud and quiet moments in the film, quick
cuts with loud explosions of sound, songs pumped up
to maximum volume, conversations in whispers.
"A Hole in My Heart" is one of the
most vile, repulsive and disgusting films I have ever
seen. It is also one of the most uncomfortable and
challenging. And, in the end, it is one of the most
rewarding and emotionally fulfilling. We are here;
we live in shit, Moodysson says. We can wallow in
it, or, like his angel Eric, we can rise above it,
remove ourselves from it, and consider ourselves alien
to it.
The end of the film is both a symbol
of death and of rebirth. Eric and Tess lie in bed
together. "Close your eyes," she tells him. "What
do you see?" she asks as the screen turns black. We
realize that the only real hope we have of surviving
the shit is the nirvana we create in our own mind.
Our only hope is the hope we ourselves can create.
If there is no God, then we must
become God.
Note:
Moodysson also credits himself for
the script, cinematography, casting, production design,
art direction, costume design, and production management
of the film.
At one point Moodysson wanted to
film the piece in America with Christina Aguilera
and Sylvestore Stallone.
The actors did not talk about the
film at all to the press until one week before its
release in Sweden.
The film premiered at the Toronto
Film Festival in September 2004 before opening a week
later in Sweden. It has been picked up in the U.S.
by Newmarket who plan on releasing it to some arthouses
in April of 2005.
Viewed at SXSW in 2005.
