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hyped garbage

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Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

At an Arctic oil site, elderly Inuit Avik (Jason Scott Lee) befriends the newly arrived Mapmaker (John Cusack). As a boy, Avik's tribe is visited by cartographer Walter Russell (Patrick Bergin). He falls ill from tuberculosis and Walter takes him to a Montreal hospital. He meets and punches Métis girl Albertine. She punches back and they're in love. Years later, Walter returns to find a stranded U-Boat. Avik has been shunned for being bad luck. Abandoned by his people, he goes south to join the war and becomes a bombardier. In England, he runs into Albertine (Anne Parillaud) who is now having an affair with Walter.This is an epic of tragic romance. It has a fable quality. The plot does jump sometimes. The little kids are really charming. They have real chemistry. The adult versions have a little less chemistry. They don't have anything as cool as punching each other although having sex on a barrage balloon is very different. The most emotional moments have to be the grandmother when Avik leaves her twice. Her's is a devastating heart-break. There is a lot of story here and director Vincent Ward does a pretty good job. While there are big war action, it could be done with more thrills. There are also lots of surreal scenes which could be improved with a more imaginative camera. Nevertheless, this is a memorable unique film.

Avik, a little Eskimo brat, messes with a mapmaker's equipment and later spits blood into his face. What he needed was a slap in the face... The movie is very European in the sense that every event has to be symbolic, everything has to be poetic, lyrical, or whatever. I mean, just look at the pretentious title (something Oprah Winfrey would say when addressing her band of dumb female viewers). The dialog suffers the most from this; because everything has to be so absolutely grand, most characters, some of the time, talk unlike real people do. Hence the dialog is occasionally awkward. Parillaud is charming and good, whereas Lee is likable but average. The revisionist views regarding the bombing of Dresden weren't necessary. The ending, though very much as grand as everything here is supposed to be, is quite good. Even the scene of the first time Parillaud and Lee have sex has to be grand: they do it on a huge air-balloon. And one of their romantic meetings is on top of Albert Hall, minutes before Germans start bombing the neighbourhood. So granditudionallly grandispliferous. Definitely watchable, but not captivating.

In "Map of the Human Heart", a down and out middle aged Eskimo man recounts his life story to an Arctic cartographer (Cusack, who has only a few minutes on screen) which constitutes the bulk of the film via flashback. His story begins with his puppy love relationship with a young half-breed girl in a hospital. From there the adorable child couple are torn apart only to have fate bring them together again as adults under the less than idyllic circumstances of WWII. The film meanders from the dramatic to the poignant to the romantic to the horrific and back to square one where it continues the story in present day. Beautifully filmed and well executed though a bit clumsy at times, "Map..." spackles up its many plot holes and provides a thoughtful fantasy camouflage for its lack of resolution in the end while serving up very pretty Kodak moments such as making love on a barrage balloon or dancing in the rafters high above an orchestra. "Map..." is sweet stuff for romantics and sentimentalists who can overlook it continuity and credibility issues in the interest of the human heart. (B)

This is a beautifully done story that begins about 1931. It focuses on the relationship between an Inuit boy 'Avik' and a girl of mixed Indian/French ancestry 'Albertine'. We first meet them in a hospital cum boarding school in Montreal. Avik, tubercular & in need of medication, had been brought there by a cartographer/flyer, who befriended him, named Russell. Russell is played by Patrick Bergin. Young Avik & Albertine start off on the wrong foot with each other, fighting and bickering, but soon discover they have a liking for one another. ONe of the nuns at the school is played by the great Jeanne Moreau who disciplines both children and sets Albertine straight about using that bit of her 'white' heritage to make a better life for herself in the world.Time and years pass and both children have been separated and re-meet as young adults during WW2. Avik(Jason S Lee) leaves his Inuit village and becomes a bombardier on a Royal Air Force Bomber. He is so good at it that he is very well respected by his peers. Nevertheless his Eskimo heritage fits right in into the all-white squadron and the different cultures are not discussed at this point in the film. It's during respite from one of his missions that Avik learns that Albertine(Anne Parillaud from Le Femme Nikita) is in England and also is in uniform for the war effort. She works in the office of Avik's old cartographer friend Russell. Russell & Albertine are now an on again off again item. When Avik starts seeing Albertine they become an item and consummate their relationship one misty afternoon by having sex on top of a weather balloon. For the rest of the film we see some of the most explicit recreations of the bombings on Dresden Germany ever put on film. They are horrific and Avik and his fellow fliers count down the missions until they have fulfilled their quota and can go home.After the war the story wraps up in about 1965 and Avik now middle aged and gray haired has been living back in his Inuit community. He has been telling his life's story to a young man in a bar played by John Cusack. The young man seems to be another cartographer just like Russell some 30 years before. A young woman comes into the community and starts asking for Avik. She meets him a while and then leaves. Avik later discovers the girl is his now grown daughter with Albertine. A daughter most likely conceived on that blimp as well as a daughter he has never known. She's getting married and had sought him out to invite him to her wedding. When he learns that Albertine is going to be there he gets eager about attending and snowmobiles his way to her wedding only to die in a ice crevice.Wonderful bittersweet story. Avik's and Albertine's relationship is not explained after WW2. That's the only hole in the story IMHO. But Jason Lee & Anne Parillaud make their relationship work. Very good movie.