Review of The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004) by Briana M — 02 Feb 2008

So when I heard about this film from Asia Argento, which seemed to be her most ambitious project to date, I was very intrigued. Iâ??ve been an Argento fan for a long time- Dario, that is. Her father is responsible for some of the most cinematically beautiful and psychologically haunting horror films Iâ??ve ever seen. While Iâ??ve seen most of his films, Suspiria and The Stendhal Syndrome are my favorites, although Tenebre is quite awesome as well. But I think what further draws me to his work is his unabashed use of family members in his most gorey and disturbing plots.

If Asia wasnâ??t being raped, sodomized, and brutally murdered in her fatherâ??s films, she was watching her mother being raped, sodomized, and brutally murdered in her fatherâ??s films. IMDB even quotes her as saying,"Sometimes I think my father gave me life because he needed a lead actress for his films." This was undoubtedly once her mother was too old to be considered as the female lead, or too tired of her own dismemberment to consider those roles.

Out of this family dynamic emerges, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. This is a story of a young boy, Jeremiah, who is quite literally torn from a seemingly nurturing and stable foster family to live with his biological mother, played by Asia herself. Asia is an addict and a whore who feeds her son drugs, takes him out tripping, beats him senseless, and on occasion leaves him locked up and runs away. Every once in a while, little Jeremiah â?? who you might also recognize from Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie- ends up in a hospital. He wakes up to his grandmother who carts him off to their creepy born-again family estate, a different but equally sick hell.

Interesting. Asia Argento makes a film about parenting. She makes a film wherein the only somewhat acceptable environment for the child is the foster home eden out of which he is expelled. He floats from family unit to family unit, where he is raped, sodomized, drugged, whored out, and left to die. Hmmm...

There were a few redeeming qualities of the film:

1. There is some interesting camera work in the first scene and peppered throughout that adds to the sense of chaos and uproot of the story.

2. Beautiful and unexpected bits of stop motion animation appear at a couple points in the film, most notably in a wrenching scene wherein the little boy is raped. At most points, these were artfully done and appropriate, at others, not so much.

Cameos abound... I guess Asia has a lot of fans in Hollywood. I particularly enjoyed Jeremy Sistoâ??s appearance. Marilyn Manson was also quite awesome, but I think this is in part because I was convinced he was Al Jourgensen until I saw the credits. Winona Ryder gave a really awful performance for what should have been a really easy role. Surprise surprise...

I kinda felt the way I did after I saw The Doom Generation for the 3rd time when all the cool parts became old hat... Except that Iâ??m not 17 anymore, there werenâ??t any cool one-liners, the cameos werenâ??t nearly as interesting, Asia is so very unsexy in this film, the references to youth counterculture are tragically outdated, and bringing a kid into this kind of shit just plops a whole extra scoop of disturbance sauce on the potato. OK, so maybe its not such a great analogy... But I DID need to take three or four showers to wash some of those scenes out of me.

I guess there is something to say for the catharsis of expression. And I guess Asia Argento needed some. Iâ??m gonna go take another shower now.