Review of Map of the Human Heart (1993) by Scott T — 06 Aug 2009

Holy Boy! This is a strange movie to review. It's a forbidden love story told over 30 yrs between and inuit boy and a mixed race girl, and as a whole I enjoyed it. The early performances of the children Avrik and Albertine (Robert Joamie and Annie Galipeau) are great, as are the performances of their elder counterparts Anne Parillaud and the always charismatic Jason Scott Lee (I for one expected Scott Lee to go on to great things after the brilliant Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story but it unfortunately never happened). The story is good, engaging, heart warming at times and wholly predictable. In a good way. The movie has great imagery and some brilliant ideas (who'd have thought of a love scene on a half inflated zeppelin?). The film is not without its faults however.

The transfer of the picture on DVD looks horrible, barely a step up from video quality and makes the early scenes in the inuit community (although shot beautifully) seem like they were shot docu-style or with a very cheap camera, giving the resulting image a very grainy effect. Off putting at first but I got used to it and it sort of added to the dreamlike quality effect that I think the director was going for. The reason I say this is because the 30 yr storyline is covered very quickly with scenes that jump over years in the two main characters lives sometimes without explanation and nearly always without warning. Er, just like a dream! Which also made it hard to follow in places.

Despite the obvious financial restraints I think this is a really good little movie and should be checked out if you are looking for something different, it won't be for everyone but I love small movies like this without big stars who are perfectly cast. Check it out.