Deep sea diving machismo
Dark Side of the Heart
A film by Eliseo Subiela and Roger Frappier
Screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival
Reviewed by Peter Boyle
Argentinean Eliseo Subiela, the producer of the internationally acclaimed Man Facing Southeast, has produced a provocative film in collaboration with Canadian Roger Frappier of Jesus of Montreal, Decline of the American Empire and Night Zoo fame. In this blackly comic, poetic and surrealistic movie, Subiela takes the viewer deep sea diving in the macho psyche.
The protagonist is Oliveira, a young, self-centred male poet who is forced to scrape a living in Buenos Aires by selling jingles to advertising agencies while pursuing his dream of finding a "woman who can fly". Constantly dogging him in his romantic quest is "Death", personified by a woman who wants him to settle down, get a "proper job" and marry her. Then there is his dead mother — who occasionally appears in the form of a talking cow — admonishing him to "grow up"!
Oliveira's community is all male and macho, comprising a couple of bohemian artist drinking mates. One keeps getting arrested for displaying giant sculptures of genitals and the other is an aesthetic refugee from Canada exploring what he believes to be the untamed female spirit of Latin America.
Since the satire in Dark Side of the Heart relies heavily on presenting stark images of Oliveira's thoughts and feelings — and as his attitude to women is unreconstructed — at certain stages of the film some viewers may get the urge to spit at the screen and walk out. But like the faint-hearted viewer who cannot help but keep watching a well-made horror movie, the socially aware viewer may find Dark Side of the Heart too surprising and involving to leave midway.
Oliveira does eventually find his "flying woman", but her role is to destroy his illusions
and expose his moral bankruptcy.
Subiela is adept at dealing with contradiction and his treatment of Oliveira is all-exposing but not at all moralistic. While the conscious male viewer may feel the need to hotly deny identifying with Oliveira, Dark Side of the Heart offers insights into sexual politics. It also comments on artistic freedom, art and capitalism and the meaning of life — making it a pretty thought-provoking movie.
Dark Side of the Heart won the Grand Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival in 1992.