"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.

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.

Canadian director Guy Maddin is an artist who has made himself a name thanks to his highly inventive and original short films. His artistic sensibility and great eye for the visual have produced several award winning films that showcase a great surrealist mind and a big (altbeit a bit bizarre) love for early films. "The Heart of the World" is a short, but very powerful example of Maddin's style of film-making and despite its 6 minutes runtime, it conveys more emotions than many feature length films."The Heart of the World" is the story of Anna (Leslie Bais), a scientist who invents a device to look at the Earth's core, literally, the Heart of the World. As this happens, two brothers battle for Anna's heart: Nikolai (Shaun Balbar) the mortician, and Osip (Caelum Vatnsdal), an actor who plays Jesus. The two of them continually try to win Anna's favors while a lustful bureaucrat named Akmatov (Greg Klymkiw) tries to make Anna fall in his bed. Things get complicated when Anna discovers that the world is going to die soon.Using the style of early 1920s silent films, Maddin manages to tell his story without trouble and at the same time, creating emotions thanks to its powerful visuals and to the expressive acting of the cast. Maddin mimics/parodies the exaggerated acting of the silent era, and the dreamlike images of German expressionism (specially reminiscent of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis") with so much care that a casual viewer may be fooled by his technique.Void of any sound (except for the music), the film uses images only to tell the story, and its surrealist composition successfully creates an haunting atmosphere that increases the emotion of the already intense film. The acting is superb, and the cast capture the essence of the silent era acting with great believability. Fans of silent films will definitely like it."The Heart of the World" is a moving, very intense and powerful short film that displays Maddin's style at its best. Guy Maddin is without a doubt a talent to follow, and someone who really uses the language of film to create something more than stories. 8/10

The first time I saw this movie end, I knew I had to immediately watch it again. It moves so fast that you only get tantalizing hints of what actually happens with the first viewing, so you want to watch it again and again. The cinematography is nothing short of amazing, with homages to film greats and displaying visionary originality that earned it a top spot in so many critic's Top 10's. Everything about this film, from the grainy textures to the the set and costumes, reflects Maddin's unstoppable freight train of weird and cool. Strong casting choices also made the movie much more than your average short, proving that five and a half minutes is plenty of time to tell an intricate and beautiful story. This will be a hard one to knock out of MY Top 5. Watch, rinse, repeat.