Watch The Heart of the World For Free

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I wanted to but couldn't!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

"The Heart of the World" is a 6.5-minute black-and-white short film from 15 years ago. The writer and director is the very prolific Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin. And not only the lack of color is a clear indicator that this was very much inspired by the German silent film classic "Metropolis". Another hint would be the "heart" in the film#s title. Unfortunately, the execution is very shoddy here. It is really nothing more than a weak copy packed into less than 7 minutes. Are we supposed to care which of the two guys she picks? Well. we do not even know them. Why would we care. And why does the action go into another direction completely in the second half of the film here. It's all way to fast to understand what is going on. I guess if that is the case you could always say this is an experimental movie, but this genre especially needs a strong personal touch from the filmmaker and this is obviously not the case with all the "Metropolis" references in here. Pretty weak film. Style over substance. Not recommended and I am baffled by the movie's popularity and high rating.

Equal parts German Expressionism and Russian Agit-prop, Heart of the World is a six minute epic of Biblical proportions.Maddin's usual idiosyncrasies resurface - Scandinavian Love triangle Melodrama amidst impending social catastrophe.Being from the Tarkovskian school of thought, an ASL (average shot length) of under 2 seconds would normally be scoffed at, but an exception will have to be made in this case, as the rapid-cutting is truly elevated to an art form here.The music is appropriately over-the-top and compliments the film perfectly.One of the wittiest, most inventive short films ever.

There aren't many artists who are also filmmakers. I suppose part of the problem is that there just aren't that many true artists, never were. I'm talking about people who know the limits of the world, have the tools and commitment to go there and gather magical shards, then come back and use them to cut my tethers.I'm talking about neither skillful entertainment nor novel decorators of ordinary ideas.And there are vastly fewer artists making films. Real artists, real films. I have three living that I particularly value: Medem, Wong, Greenaway. But Greenaway is off experimenting in other media at the moment and may be lost, his two greatest collaborators gone and interest in the drugs of narrative waning. I may replace him with Maddin.It isn't just that the man has an incredible facility with a broader cinematic vocabulary than others. Its that he is able to connect that intuitively to deeper adventures in being and the internal stays that keep our emotional skin from collapsing.Now to my mind, there's a world of difference between mastering the short form in film — which this is — and the long form. The long form is required for soulchange. It just takes that long for our minds to encircle themselves to strangle the unwanted. But holy cow, what a short form project this is. Since this, I know only two Maddin projects: "Saddest" and "Dracula," and each of them are something I would get my best friend out of bed and travel across the state to see.This probably won't stick because it is so brief. But it is such rush! Every element in it has either no floor or sits on poles so high you can't see down. His stories are all similar, but no matter because they are irrational, overloaded with contradiction, self-destructive and yet cartoonish. They are — like his images — apparently borrowed from the past and simply pasted, like a child's assembly of magazine photos.But nothing is borrowed, really. All his ethers are wholly called from his own dreams and merely and loosely wear somewhat familiar costumes.The main deal here is conflict between a man who is a mortician/military politician (with a penis-cannon) and his brother, an actor who plays Christ deeply enough to convince himself. The two vie for sex with the planet — there's an amazing segment you won't forget where the woman-world in question impregnates herself, and bears... guess.Cinema! Usually I comment on how clever the folding in a film is. In this case, the folding of the Christ-play is a weapon that is used against the woman in the name of wooing her. Just that one, that one notion is enough to advise you not to miss this.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

A scientist of the state, Anna, discovers that the world is under threat as it's heart is breaking. While two brothers battle for her heart, Anna is distracted by the attentions of the capitalist Akmatov with his chest of gold. Can Anna focus in time to save the world?I'll be up front and say that I would really need to see this film again to give it a totally fair review, but I didn't have the chance. When I watched this film I was in a small pub at a showing as part of 7' Cinema and it was very crowded and I was trying to buy a drink as it was showing. For this reason I didn't really get into the substance of the film and found it difficult to connect with.Visually though, the film is very slick and very impressive. I found it difficult to totally get into because I felt it was referencing a genre that I am not aware of. Despite this I still found it to be very slick and enjoyable. The film looks genuine yet exaggerates the visuals to good effect, even if I felt it lacked the substance that others saw in it.Overall this is polished, slick and enjoyably stylish. The mark of a good film is that you are ready to see it again as soon as it finishes - with this I felt that way, even if not for the best of reasons.