A Hole In My Heart

A Hole In My Heart (Lukas Moodysson, 2005) [3]
Personally speaking, I’m a person that enjoys a certain amount of cynicism and darkness in their cinema. But there is definitely a distinction between cynicism and a total lack of humanity, and this film has no humanity to be found. It is an ugly film, in terms of aesthetics as well as what actually goes on. I knew going in to this that it had some grotesque scenes, and yet they didn’t have as negative as an effect as I was expecting. I think that Irreversible is still a much more reprehensible film (I bring this up because Sicinski makes a point of comparing the two in terms of critical response, which I see as valid). Both films have no redeeming qualities to them, but what bothers me about this film is that Moodysson wants to make a moral stand even though his film is void of any human qualities. OK, I see that pornography is bad but do you really have to degrade your actors to such an extent? There’s one scene in particular I’m thinking of but I won’t give it away but you’ll know it when you see it. It’s not so much what I see that is unsettling to me; the problem is that someone would actually allow themselves to be subjected to Moodysson’s cruelness. Plus, I don’t even know what you’re trying to say exactly besides pornography is ugly. People can say that Lars Von Trier is cruel and manipulative, but Moodysson makes him look like Mr. Rogers.