The Dark Side of the Heart
Genre(s): Surrealism / Art Cinema
Director: Eliseo Subiela
Cast: Darío Grandinetti, Sandra Ballesteros, Nacha Guevara, André Mélançon, Jean Pierre Reguerraz, Mónica Galán and Inés Vernengo
Awards: Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards: Silver Condor Best Director: Eliseo Subiela; Bergamo Film Meeting: Bronze Rosa Camuna; Havana Film Festival: Grand Coral - Second Prize; Montréal World Film Festival: Grand Prix des Amériques ...
The Dark Side of the Heart (Spanish: El lado oscuro del corazón) is a 1992 Argentine classic directed by Eliseo Subiela. From the poet protagonist (played by Dario Grandineti) to the use of poems by Mario Benedetti , Juan Gelman and Oliverio Girondo, poetry is the dominate force of this movie.
In this cheerfully surrealistic romance, a poet named Oliverio (Darío Grandinetti) lives by his wits in Buenos Aires, winning dollars by reciting his poems to passing motorists who stop at red lights or by occasionally trading a poem for a steak from a sympathetic restaurateur. His friends include an eccentric Canadian sculptor and Death (Nacha Guevara) himself, who often encourages him to get a regular job. When he grows tired of the women he is sleeping with, his bed becomes a doorway to elsewhere, and they simply disappear. This all changes somewhat when he falls in love with a high-class (and evidently very gifted) hooker. Their lovemaking sessions literally result in the couple levitating. Increasingly obsessed with meeting her fee, the free-spirited poet gets a job in advertising. At one point, their sexual encounter literally sends them flying over the city.
Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards: Silver Condor Best Director: Eliseo Subiela; Best Editing: Marcela Sáenz; Best New Actress: Sandra Ballesteros
Bergamo Film Meeting: Bronze Rosa Camuna: Eliseo Subiela
Gramado Film Festival: Golden Kikito – Best Actor: Darío Grandinetti; Best Director: Eliseo Subiela; Best Score: Osvaldo Montes
Havana Film Festival: Best Actor: Darío Grandinetti; FIPRESCI Prize: Eliseo Subiela; Grand Coral – Second Prize: Eliseo Subiela
Montréal World Film Festival: Grand Prix des Amériques: Eliseo Subiela
Directed by: Eliseo Subiela
Produced by: Suzanne Dussault, Roger Frappier, Susana Serebrenik and Fernando Sokolowicz
Written by: Poems by Mario Benedetti , Juan Gelman and Oliverio Girondo. Script by Eliseo Subiela.
Music by: Mário Clavel, Osvaldo Montes, Chico Novarro and Fito Páez
Cinematography: Hugo Colace
Country: Argentina – Canada
Amazon's Customers Reviews
Love Teaches You How to Fly By Maximiliano F Yofre
Director Eliseo Subiela has authored many outstanding (and underrated or unknown to the mass market) films as "Hombre Mirando al Sudeste (Man Facing Southeast)" (1986), "No te Mueras sin Decirme Adonde Vas (Don't Die without Telling Me Where You Are Going)" (1995) and the present "El Lado Oscuro del Corazon (The Dark Side of Heart) (1992).
All of them are a weird mixture of fantasy and reality. Subiela uses a surrealistic language delivering powerful images and proposals to the audience.
In The Dark Side Subiela employs a light comedy tone but deep themes are touched: love, death, creativity and the ultimate meaning of life itself.
The story follows Oliverio's comings and goings to sell his ideas to advertising companies in order to make a living. He is a poet in search of love, desperately looking for a woman that can fly.
In his quest he makes love to many female candidates. If they can't fly… well the bed take care of them.
Finally he meets Ana, a beautiful Uruguayan whore that flies, but she is a pro and demands money. So Oliverio has to strain his imagination to earn enough money to have a three day love tour.
Some scenes in the movie will leave you roaring of laughter: the cow talking to Oliverio with his mother voice; crossing Buenos Aires' crowded streets with an enormous phallus sculpture and the disposal bed are some exhilarating examples.
Poetry with texts from Mario Benedetti and Juan Gelman enrich the story.
Dario Grandinatti has the ideal physique-du-role to impersonate Oliverio and delivers very convincing performance. Sandra Ballesteros' dark beauty gives her Ana a sensual and captivating personality.
Nacha Guevara as the hieratical Death is great.
It is a great provoking film for adult audiences. Do not miss it you'll be delighted!
Surrealist Poetry Made into a Film By Monty Worth
Not only is this my favorite film ever, but I was so obsessed by it that I researched all the amazing poetry in it (by Mario Benedetti, Juan Gelman, and most of all Oliverio Girondo) and went to Argentina. The film is inspired by Girondo's book of poetry "Scarecrow" (Espantapajaros) from 1933, but set in contemporary (early 90s) Argentina and Uruguay just after the end of military rule. It is a romantic love story, but it is suffused with a poetic sensitivity, juvenile playfulness, bits of magic realism (reminiscent of Garcia Marquez or Like Water for Chocolate) and a very moving emotional pensiveness. It follows the bohemian life of a poet in Buenos Aires, who hangs out with his friend a pornographic sculptor, pays for his meals with poems, converses with Death (personified) and searches for the woman who can fly. In Uruguay for work, he meets a prostitute and on subsequent visits, despite their fears, they fall (and fly) in love. I have forced all my friends to see this movie and would recommend this film to anyone, but most of all romantics or speakers of Spanish. Subiela is a genius: his other films "Man Facing Southeast" and "Don't Die Without Telling Me Where You're Going" are also very much worth seeing. There is a sequel, "The Dark Side of the Heart 2″, made ten years later which is also worth seeing, but not quite as great as the original.
Excellent movie, poor dvd quality By M. Borrego Huerta
This is an excellent movie. One of the best movies I have ever watched. I think that's quite enough to recomend it to you. If not I can add that the story is marvellous, that makes you think and feel at the same time. The characters are complex and different to what probably you have seen in the movies before, but are much more close to what you are that the Hollywood films. And above all, the film as a whole makes you dream with its poetical and lyrical way of talking about real and everyday life.
The one and only but, the quality of the dvd is poor, very poor.
The Dark Side of the Heart, 4.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating
The Dark Side of the Heart (Spanish: El lado oscuro del corazón) is a 1992 Argentine classic directed by Eliseo Subiela. From the poet protagonist (played by Dario Grandineti) to the use of poems by Mario Benedetti , Juan Gelman and Oliverio Girondo, poetry is the dominate force of this...
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Categories: Argentine movies, Images, Synopsis, Trailers
Top 100 Ibero-American Movies of all time | IberoAmericanMovies.com
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