Movie Type: Social Problem Film, Psychological Drama
Themes: Innocence Lost, Fathers and Sons
Main Cast: Thorsten Flinck, Björn Almroth, Sanna Bråding, Goran Marjanovic
Release Year: 2004
Country: SE
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
Lukas Moodysson wrote and directed this disturbing and controversial allegorical drama. Eric (Björn Almroth) is a teenager who lives in a shabby flat with his father, Rickard (Thorsten Flinck). Eric spends most of his time holed up in his room, blaring industrial music in order to drown out what's going on around him. Eric has just cause to be a bit disturbed by his surroundings -- Rickard is an amateur filmmaker specializing in extreme sex videos, and he's taken over the living room, where his emotionally disturbed friend Geko (Goran Marjanovic) and a blank young woman named Tess (Sanna Bråding) are "starring" in his latest project. As shooting progresses over the course of several days, Rickard and his cast lose track of the outside world and become increasingly desensitized to their own decadence. As the sexual play becomes more and more extreme, edging into violence, Eric feels no choice but to intervene. Both celebrated and criticized for its unflinchingly explicit sexual content, Ett Hål I Mitt Hjärta (aka A Hole in My Heart) received its North American premier at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
This fourth feature from Swedish wunderkind Lukas Moodysson may seem to refute the humanism of his earlier work. But really, A Hole in My Heart celebrates the same values as Show Me Love, Together, and Lilya 4-Ever -- by depicting their dark flip side. Once again, circumstance forces strangers to forge an unlikely family unit. Once again, a forlorn adolescent sees through the injustices of the adult world. And once again, young people yearn to overcome the emotional gulf that separates them. Yet this time around, Moodysson's characters fail to connect in any meaningful way, yielding nothing but anarchy and infantile wallowing. To portray this failure, the filmmaker employs an arsenal of distancing effects. From its low-fi, handheld camerawork and glitchy, white-noise soundtrack to the grotesque atrocities in which its characters indulge, the film almost dares viewers to keep watching. The semi-explicit sex is willfully non-erotic. The cutaway shots of vaginal surgery and copulating dolls provide constant disorientation. The threat of violence lends a dull tension to even the most deliberately banal dialogue. Pretentious? Yes, but also effective. It's hard to imagine anyone loving a film so defiantly ugly, but it's not hard to imagine avant-garde cineasts admiring it. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Cast
Thorsten Flinck - Rickard
Björn Almroth - Eric
Sanna Bråding - Tess
Goran Marjanovic - Geko
Credit
Lukas Moodysson - Art Director, Malin Fornander - Art Director, Jesper Kurlandsky - Art Director, Karl Strandlind - Art Director, Lukas Moodysson - Casting, Malin Fornander - Casting, Jesper Kurlandsky - Casting, Karl Strandlind - Casting, Peter Aalbæk Jensen - Co-producer, Gunnar Carlsson - Co-producer, Tomas Eskilsson - Co-producer, Lukas Moodysson - Costume Designer, Malin Fornander - Costume Designer, Jesper Kurlandsky - Costume Designer, Karl Strandlind - Costume Designer, Lukas Moodysson - Director, Michal Leszczylowski - Editor, Lukas Moodysson - Cinematographer, Malin Fornander - Cinematographer, Jesper Kurlandsky - Cinematographer, Karl Strandlind - Cinematographer, Lars Jönsson - Producer, Hans Moller - Sound/Sound Designer, Thorsten Flinck - Screenwriter, Lukas Moodysson - Screenwriter, Björn Almroth - Screenwriter, Sanna Bråding - Screenwriter, Malin Fornander - Screenwriter, Jesper Kurlandsky - Screenwriter, Goran Marjanovic - Screenwriter, Karl Strandlind - Screenwriter
A Hole in My Heart (Swedish: Ett hål i mitt hjärta) is a 2004Swedishdrama film written and directed by Lukas Moodysson, and starring Thorsten Flinck, Björn Almroth, Sanna Bråding and Goran Marjanovic. The film is a critical comment on the society of today, especially the porn industry, although Moodysson prefers to leave the exact interpretation to the viewer: "I have cooked you a delicious meal, but I'm not going to chew it for you."[1]
The film has gained some controversy in Sweden due to some shocking and disturbing footage, including closeups of vaginal reconstructionsurgery. It has also been reported that some of the violent sex scenes are not just acted out but were actually performed during filming. Also features an anal sex scene without the use of lubrication, a masturbation scene with a toothbrush, and an extended scene about the woman's "smelly vagina".
In an apartment somewhere in Sweden, a woman, a man and his friend are recording an amateur porn movie, while the one man's teenage son is trying to stay out of their way in his room. As time progresses, their filming gets out of hand. All the while, the father is concerned that his son has no respect for him, and the son is concerned about how his father treats the woman.
Moodysson's original intent was to have the film taking place in the United States, using an American cast. Research was made about the American porn industry, but eventually Moodysson decided to set the story in Sweden: "I was, like, hit by a truck — and that truck was Lilya 4-ever. When I tried to return to that American version, some kind of story that takes place in the American porn industry, I discovered I couldn’t do it. I had to transform it into this much smaller and more claustrophobic Swedish story."[2]
Filming took place during 4 weeks in Trollhättan.[1] The film was shot digitally with DVCams.[3]
Release
The theatrical poster featured a warning sign about strong images.[1] Lukas Moodysson has expressed disapproval over the future VHS and DVD releases of the movie (the decision to release it was out of his hands) — he would have preferred a theaters-only release, to avoid children being exposed to it.
Critical reception
The Swedish reception was split. With a few reservations, Malena Janson at Svenska Dagbladet rated the film 5 out of 6 and praised Moodysson for his daring approach: "A Hole in My Heart consolidates Moodysson's role as the fearless innovator, boarder stretcher and truth teller in European cinema - who fully masters, and isn't reluctant to use, the film medium's artistic and political possibilities. To the delight of those who dare to watch."[4] Jens Peterson at Aftonbladet respected the film for being uncompromising, but couldn't give it a higher rating than 2 out of 5: "Several times, the narrative style stands in the way of the story. A Hole in My Heart is both more overly obvious and stranger than Moodysson's three earlier, better, films. Occasionally even tedious, a word you never could have used about Moodysson."[5]
The film was badly received by English-language critics, with a 41% approval percentage based on 17 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.[6]
