Fantasia 2010: HEARTLESS Review
Love is trite, pedantically speaking. The idea we profit from performing simple acts of kindness for the benefit of our fellow human beings has been worn down and dulled through over-use. People flock to torture porn, visions of the apocalypse and similar examples of genre voyeurism which have been done to death in turn. Even the conservative fantasy of the decline and fall of Western civilisation is a tired, empty stereotype.
The first feature in fourteen years from cult director Philip Ridley (The Reflecting Skin, The Passion of Darkly Noon), Heartless is a story about learning to love and accept love; a hallucinatory fantasy; a study in pain and terror, both physical and mental; a violently explicit horror movie and a stark warning modern society is on the verge of collapsing in on itself. That it manages to take so many potentially disastrous clichés and mash them together into what is undoubtedly one of the best films to be shown this year is nothing short of a triumph.
It is not perfect; it is wilfully ambiguous, occasionally incoherent; the genre aspects will dissuade many viewers and the actors have to visibly work to make several key parts of the narrative anything more than platitudes. But it succeeds. It feels the epitome of a film that could never work with any other director, cast or crew but it does work, and frequently magnificently.
Jamie (Jim Sturgess, Across the Universe) is a young man born with a large, heart-shaped birthmark covering most of his face who lives in an unspecified London borough plagued by rising crime rates. Ostracised and introverted, Jamie doesn't socialise much beyond spending time with his immediate family - his brother, their mother, aunts and uncle - and people's repeated warnings the world is going to hell in a handbasket largely wash over him.
Then one night Jamie witnesses the gang terrorising the neighbourhood, only where others see delinquent youth masked beneath their ubiquitous hoodies he sees demonic faces. Increasingly convinced there's some supernatural explanation behind events, when his mother is brutally murdered by the same gang members he decides he's destined to mete out vigilante justice on the forces of evil.
Yet when Jamie catches the attention of the demonic Papa B (Joseph Mawle), the figure behind the rising violence, he finds himself tempted into giving up his crusade as part of an ominous bargain in exchange for everything he's ever wanted - only Jamie's obligation as dictated by this bargain threatens to grow darker than he ever imagined possible.
The fourteen year hiatus doesn't seem to have hurt Ridley's extraordinary talent - even his detractors tend to acknowledge his eye for fantastically striking imagery. From only minutes in, Heartless is typically gorgeous, an effortless blend of haunting urban decay and eerily beautiful found compositions. But it quickly becomes apparent this is a new Ridley - the lush, baroque surrealism of his previous films is still partly in effect but far more reflective, with much less of the over-emotional melodrama that plagued the end of Passion.
Though Heartless is in some ways a far more conventional, more grounded genre narrative it is definitely not solely a genre film. Ridley switchbacks with jaw-dropping ease between any number of influences with barely a pause for breath, seemingly comfortable with any and all of them. Heartless veers from fantasy to horror to family soap opera to gritty urban drama to broad comedy and even to a musical, of a sort; every song on the soundtrack was specifically written around the narrative, not to mention sung by Sturgess.
Ridley's cast play a large part in the success of his eclectic approach; the supporting lineup of experienced British character actors turn in sterling work (Timothy Spall and writer/director Noel Clarke (Kidulthood, Adulthood) among them) but Jim Sturgess is phenomenal in the lead role. Jamie has several key dramatic setpieces which could so easily have collapsed into saccharine tedium; he dreams another, 'normal' Jamie lives a successful life in an alternate reality; he doubts his self-worth, his ability to make friends, have relationships.
Yet Sturgess imbues these moments with an honesty that is nothing short of devastating. A quiet conversation with his mother where (like any caring parent) she assures her son he is a wonderful person who's going to find that person who will love him for who he is inside is heartbreaking for all its obvious simplicity. A later monologue where he doubts this is similarly effective. One key scene shortly after the central demonic bargain has been struck switches from queasy (yet very funny) comedy to nerve-shredding horror with dizzying speed, yet it's Sturgess' performance as much as Ridley's direction that means such genre-hopping never falters.
To reiterate - that horror is horrific. For the first two thirds or so Ridley trades largely in tension and boo scares (one particularly effective), yet he later throws in two major effects sequences, both shockingly graphic. While neither is entirely seamless, technically speaking (though they are both extremely accomplished) each time it is the context that leaves the viewer shaken beyond anything most horror directors in recent years have ever accomplished.
While Ridley spells few things out explicitly (he tends to avoid being drawn into analysing his body of work) the thematic material is wonderfully thought-provoking and multi-layered, yet also fantastically succinct. The eventual final confrontation with Papa B is far from the bombastic showdown genre convention would seem to dictate, and Jamie's character arc in general throws in any number of surprises both comforting and upsetting.
And it bears noting that while the film definitely carries a message urging people to open their eyes, resist the temptation to live their lives in fear and generally behave like decent human beings this is not positivity for its own sake. The ending is almost a warning against blind faith or wide-eyed naivete.
Will Heartless see Ridley accepted by the mainstream, or even a wider genre audience? Difficult to say; again, it is a strange, unsettling little story that refuses to do anything the easy way - questions left unanswered, light on the gore and viscera, emotions left wide open. It's still a brave, bold film, unrelentingly personal, thrilling, heartbreaking and downright terrifying. A fever-dream mashup cherry-picking from a staggeringly diverse portfolio of high and low art, fantastically creative, impeccably produced and beautifully acted by all concerned, Heartless simply cannot be recommended highly enough.
