The Heart of the World

THE HEART OF THE WORLD (Rhombus Media, CA 2000)
    Dir/sc: Guy Maddin; prod: Niv Fichman, Judy Shapiro, Jennifer Weiss; ph/ed: Guy Maddin, deco dawson; mus: Georgy Sviridov, suite dalla partitura di / from the film score Vremya, vperyod! (Tempo, avanti! / Time, Forward!; 1967); des: Réjean Labrie; art dir: Olaf Dux; cost: Meg McMillan; cast: Leslie Bais, Caelum Vatnsdal, Shaun Balbar, Greg Klymkiw, Tammy Gillis, Carson Natrass; 35 mm, 540 ft, 6’ (24 fps), b/w, sound, Toronto International Film Festival Group.
    English intertitles.

"A 6-minute short originally commissioned as part of the Preludes series for the 25th anniversary of the Toronto International Film Festival, this multiple award-winning short film – heralded by many critics as “one of the best films of the year, regardless of length” – is a loving parody of the silent Soviet cinema of Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, and of silent movie melodrama in general."

"Evoking classic silent films, early horror films, chapter serials, and propaganda reels, The Heart of the World tells the mythic story of Anna, a state scientist, and the two brothers who vie for her love while she tries to save the world from the evil Capitalist, Akmatov."

"With a reported 850 separate edits in less than 6 minutes, the film’s rhythmic use of intertitles and sentence fragments creates a forceful visual poetry. Possessed of Maddin’s typically casual morbidity and uniquely avant-garde sense of humour, The Heart of the World is the most concise – and perhaps most successful – articulation of Maddin’s signature cinematic genius."

"The Heart of the World received a number of awards and accolades in Canada, the United States, and Europe, and has very quickly become considered one of the best short films ever made. It scored a Genie Award for Live Action Short Drama and was named the year’s Best Experimental Film by the National Society of Film Critics (USA)." – http://www.filmreferencelibrary.ca (Toronto International Film Festival Group website

"Canadian director Guy Maddin’s six-minute music-video-cum-Eisensteinian-sci-fi-workout, should be seen at all costs. Seeming to double as an aptly hyper history of the world (or maybe just of movies), The Heart of the World almost subliminally relates the tale of two brothers – a “youth mortician” (Shaun Balbar) and an actor (Caelum Vatnsdal) playing Jesus Christ – who are both in love with the heroic Anna (Leslie Bais), a “state scientist” studying the Earth’s core and discovering that the world is at serious risk of death by heart failure. (And no wonder, with all that action!) Further propelled by a suitably frantic Soviet orchestral score, the insane rush of scratched, jumpy images compels you to keep your eyes as wide as possible for the entire six minutes – even though you couldn’t dream of absorbing it all even after a dozen viewings. Harder to miss is Maddin’s message: How contrived, how ridiculous, and how goddamn exciting this silly medium of ours!" – Rob Nelson, citypages.com (website, Minneapolis-St. Paul)