X
- 2018
- Not Rated
- Big World Pictures
- 2 h 21 m
- 2018
- Not Rated
- Big World Pictures
- 2 h 21 m
Summary Emanuel spends his days at a sanatorium. Falling in love with another patient, he narrates his and his fellow patients' attempts to live life to the fullest as their bodies slowly fade away, but their minds refuse to give up.
Directed By: Radu Jude
Written By: M. Blecher, Radu Jude
- 2018
- Not Rated
- Big World Pictures
- 2 h 21 m
- 2018
- Not Rated
- Big World Pictures
- 2 h 21 m
Scarred Hearts
70
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
tbd
Where to Watch
Summary Emanuel spends his days at a sanatorium. Falling in love with another patient, he narrates his and his fellow patients' attempts to live life to the fullest as their bodies slowly fade away, but their minds refuse to give up.
Directed By: Radu Jude
Written By: M. Blecher, Radu Jude
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
70
71% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
29% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
70
71% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
29% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
It’s the rare page-to-screen adaptation in which the camera becomes an essential character. The action often unfolds in long shot, with crowded compositions in which the principals are obscured by door frames. Over time, the withholding of conventional editing patterns and the sensitization to subtle changes in camera placement become an analogue for Emanuel’s entrapment.
Despite the film's bleak premise, writer-director Radu Jude finds dark humor within the certainty of death.
Jude makes us think and makes us feel and succeeds in making Blecher a presence in the film.
The director, Radu Jude, unfolds the horrific treatment, involving long needles, tight wraps, and a full-body cast, with an unflinching and fascinated specificity that contrasts with the teeming theatrical tableaux in which he films life in the lavish facility.
Because of its vignette-based structure, the film never coalesces into a single, engaging narrative, but it’s rich with wonderful moments.
Emanuel’s likeability (more apparent in the film than in Blecher’s novel) unquestionably helps bridge the extended running time, and Solange is a fascinating character, liberated yet still drawn to the scene of her hospitalization. The film also has a sense of humor...but the project never quite comes together.
Whereas Aferim! was a thrilling epic that uncovered a piece of Romanian history heretofore largely ignored, Hearts hardly develops a pulse, hiding the faces of the protagonists in immobile medium and wide shots while any possible emotions get snowed under by non-contextualized intellectual musings and socio-politico-historical details.
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Production Company
HI Film Productions,
Komplizen Film,
Centrul National al Cinematografiei (CNC),
MEDIA Programme of the European Union,
Bord Cadre Films
Release Date Jul 27, 2018
Duration 2 h 21 m
Rating Not Rated
Tagline A free adaptation of the literary works of M. Blecher
Awards
Gopo Awards, Romania
• 4 Wins & 12 Nominations
Locarno International Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
Mar del Plata Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
