 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Film Info
2000
6 mins
B&W
Canada
No Dialogue
35mm
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reviews
FOUR STARS (MASTERPIECE RATING)
- Jonathan Rosenbaum, CHICAGO READER
READ THE WHOLE REVIEW
"THE HEART OF THE WORLD packs the visual wham of Eisenstein and Vertov and the narrative blam of a Mack Sennett two-reeler into five dazzling minutes of frantic formalist fun. I could watch this film every morning as a substitute for coffee. Kino, kino, kino!"
- Mike Rubin, THE VILLAGE VOICE
"Frame for frame, the densest and most spectacular film playing anywhere!"
- Michael Atkinson, MR.SHOWBIZ.COM
"An astonishing five-minute black-and-white fantasia!"
- A.O. Scott, THE NEW YORK TIMES
"The single most impressive film I saw last year!"
- Lou Lumenick, THE NEW YORK POST
"Guy Maddin’s masterpiece is only five minutes long and it will astonish you with its jam-packed power and beauty!"
- Ray Pride, NEW CITY CHICAGO
"The celluloid equivalent of concentrated juice. Guy Maddin packs nearly every human emotion (and then some) into five supercharged minutes!"
- J. Hoberman, THE VILLAGE VOICE
"Explodes on the screen like a nitrate-laced firecracker!"
– Kristin M. Jones, FILM COMMENT
"A masterful spoof of silent Soviet propaganda films that feels like a feature running at 30 times normal speed!"
- Mike D'Angelo, TIME OUT
"Our jury awarded the grand prize to Guy Maddin’s THE HEART OF THE WORLD for its sheer giddy love of cinema. This exquisite short encapsulates the history of film, indeed the history of the world. Its breakneck narrative touches on all the great themes - love, heroism, treachery - and climaxes in a burst of hope. Let there be Kino!"
- Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco
Awarded the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Short Film for "its loving and comic homage to the cinemas of Eisenstein and Pudovkin and silent cinema in general".
– Miami Film Festival
"The undisputed triumph of the preludes [ten short films by leading Canadian filmmakers commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival for their 25th anniversary] was Guy Maddin’s THE HEART OF THE WORLD, an amazingly plausible pastiche of a silent Russian science-fiction film--AELIA, QUEEN OF MARS as Vertov might have directed it--condensed to a five-minute rush."
- Dave Kehr, FILM COMMENT
"Guy Maddin’s five minute feature is a thimble sized epic of sacrifice, salvation and innuendo turned inside out. Like a Kino Eye version of the Fleischer brothers’ KOKO’S EARTH CONTROL or METROPOLIS on an (unlaced) shoestring, THE HEART OF THE WORLD comes hurtling off the screen with the crazy determination of a runaway train. Maddin exposes a sibling rivalry of biblical proportions and a romantic triangle - beware when saviors attract! A fair haired fallen Messiah with a heart of gold divides the brothers but unites the world."
- Mark McElhatten, NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL CATALOGUE |
|
|
|
