The Dark Side of the Heart

Director: Eliseo Subiela Eliseo Subiela

Overview

"This pilot film for a TV series titled Hancock was initially telecast as The Dark Side of Innocence. The Hancocks are a tightly-knit, prosperous California family. Mom and Pop Hancock (John Anderson and Kim Hunter) oversee a thriving lumber business--when they're not refereeing the travails of their five children. The pilot episode concentrates on the oldest daughter (Joanna Pettet), who has decided she's sick of being a society matron and has returned to the Hancock manse with her own kids in tow. The remaining Hancock kids all have problems of their own, especially embittered divorcee Anne Archer. The Hancocks didn't fly as a series, which means that some of the crises presented in the pilot are never resolved."

Product Details

Release Date:	04/15/2003
UPC:	0736899080228
Original Release:	1992
Rating:	R
Source:	Cinemateca
Language:	English
Time:	2:07:00
Sales rank:	37,893

Special Features

Fullscreen; Booklet; Chapter selection; English language subtitles

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Dario Grandinetti	Oliverio
Sandra Ballesteros	Ana
Nacha Guevara	Death
Andre Melancon	Erik
Jean Pierre Reguerraz	Gustavo
Monica Galan	La ex esposa
Hugo Arana	Actor
Jorge Dória	Actor
Miguel Solá	Actor
Eliseo Subiela	Actor
Nestor Zacco	Actor
Tito Haas	Actor
Osvaldo Montes	Composer

Technical Credits

Eliseo Subiela

Eliseo Subiela	Director,Screenwriter
Roger Frappier	Producer

Editorial Reviews

This whimsical Eliseo Subiela film has the unusual and ambitious qualities one would expect from the director of the excellent Man Facing Southeast. Yet at the same time, there's a coldness to the characters, and a slight silliness to the scenarios, that make it a disappointment -- especially coming from the director of Man Facing Southeast, a film that struck an admirable balance between the real and the surreal. The way protagonist Darío Grandinetti disposes (almost literally) of his lovers is too cruel to evoke more than queasy laughter, although the intention seems to be at least somewhat comic; his romantic quest for lovers who can literally fly too absurd to be laudable or even engaging; and his self-absorption so off-putting that it's not at all mitigated by his devotion to poetry. His running buddies in art and love are no more admirable in their shameless pursuit of sex and kicks, which seems more hedonistic than subversive. That's not to say that there aren't some good ideas at work, even if they're a little on the forced and fanciful side, such as his ongoing encounters with Death (whose repeated admonitions for Grandinetti to find a job in advertising are about as close as the film comes to trenchant seriocomedy). And there's a truly scarifying scene in which a Nina Hagen-like singer screeches some almighty bleak rock & roll to passersby. Not even the prostitutes that Grandinetti connects with arouse too much of the viewers' sympathies or curiosities, and while the directorial blurs between harsh reality and dreamlike passages (including one in which a cow assumes the voice of the main character's mother) stoke the imagination, they don't resonate with our emotions.