Customer Reviews

The Dark Side of the Heart

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

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.

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.

This movie simply is one of those that can't be catalogued, can't be reviewed without falling short. Part of Latin America's magical realism made film, this masterpiece by Argentinian Eliseo Subiela, depicts the relationship between Oliverio (a poet who sells his creativity to publicity agencies for money when he's short on cash) and Ana (a prostitute), in Oliverio's quest for the woman who "can fly" while making love... This movie will leave you wanting more, and you shouldn't have to wait to long, because its part 2 came out in 2001. Also, if you enjoy Dario Grandinetti's performance as Oliverio you HAVE to see "Talk to Her" by Almodovar. He shows just how versatile and actor he is in that movie.

I was fortunate enough to meet Eliseo Subiela in person in a
Latin American in a Film festival in New York. I was given some insight in the directors vision in making the film. The movie touched me in a way very few Hollywood movies ever had. The film was surreal. Something Latin American writers are great at. I loved the way the poetry from Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti harmonized with Oliverios (Darío Grandinetti - watch in Talk to her) quest for that woman that can make him fly in love. Subielas Second film (El lado oscuro del corazón 2  2001) was even better though that movie stands alone. After seeing the movie I remember walking through the streets of Manhattan Wanting to be in some café in San Juan or Buenos Aires enjoying a drink and yes writing/reciting poetry like Oliverio. I guess thats why we go to the movies. ¡Bravo maestro Subiela!

This movie simply is one of those that can't be catalogued, can't be reviewed without falling short. Part of Latin America's magical realism made film, this masterpiece by Argentinian Eliseo Subiela, depicts the relationship between Oliverio (a poet who sells his creativity to publicity agencies for money when he's short on cash) and Ana (a prostitute), in Oliverio's quest for the woman who "can fly" while making love... This movie will leave you wanting more, and you shouldn't have to wait to long, because its part 2 just came out last year.

El lado oscuro del corazon de Oliverio Girondo se ilumina con el amor y erotismo descubierto en Ana por medio de la poesia dialoguistica a lo largo de la pelicula. La muerte juega un papel importantisimo, en el sentido en que ella (personificada en mujer (Nacha Guevara)) se acerca a Oliverio en los momentos de debilidad poetica, es decir, en momentos en que el poeta no tiene inspiracion para escribir o esta desilusionado del amor, por lo dificil que para el significa "Amar", como bien el lo expresa "Como amar sin poseer, como no amar sin pedir nada a cambio, sin esperar nada a cambio...el amor es una trampa que se le tiende al otro para aduenarse de el, para hacerlo su esclavo (...)".

El lado oscuro del corazon(Dark Side of the Heart) is one of those unforgetable films in which the art of filmmaking becomes poetry. The poems of the great Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti are part of some beautiful and magnificent scenes.In fact Benedetti himself appears in one or two occations as a drunk German poet. The poem used for the story of this film is one of the best known poems of Oliverio Girondo (Argentina). Eliseo Subiela is one of the finest Directors of our International Cinema.

Absolutely my favorite movie of all times. The wit! The story! The poetry! Mr. Subiela, I love you for this awesome gift to humanity. Inmejorable.

This film is a sublime fusion of poetry, film, and surrealism. I saw it for the first time at a Latin film festival in Atlanta, Georgia and will no doubt immerse myself in it many times in the next few years. A witty and poignant look at our need to love deeply that manages to be intellectual without ever letting the emotions become stale. To Eliseo Subiela, all I can say is "thank you!"