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Crazy
Love
is the story of one man's life told in three nights over the
course of twenty years. The movie follows one Harry Voss, focusing
on his difficult search for love. In 1955 we meet 13-year old
Harry, a starry-eyed boy whose idea of romantic love is fashioned
by melodramatic movies from Hollywood. Introduced to the mysteries
of sex by an older friend, he begins to realize the messiness
and pain of love. His vision of his parent's marriage falls
to the sight of them grunting under the sheets. Next we join
Harry at age 19, as he's about to graduate from school. The
poor boy is afflicted with one of he worst cases of acne it
is possible to imagine, covering him from head to toe in horrible
bumps. It is made clear that he has no social life and few friends.
Although introverted and shy, he's convinced by a buddy to attend
the graduation dance and goaded into asking the object of his
affections to dance. He's unable to work up the courage until
he wraps his face and head in toilet paper — but even when the
young girl sweetly accepts his invitation Harry still feels
rejected. The night ends with him drunk and arrested. Then we
jump to the man at age 33, when Harry has become an alcoholic
loner. He runs into an old friend at a bar and the pair goes
on a wild night of drinking, culminating in the theft of a dead
body from an ambulance. When the corpse turns out to be a beautiful
young woman Harry suddenly seems to sober up, becoming serious.
When Harry claims to be in love with the dead girl his friend
is unsure of what to do, but reluctantly goes along with a makeshift
marriage ceremony on the beach.
Coming as a complete
surprise to me, Crazy
Love is one of the
most beautiful, touching films I've seen in a long time. Its
three-act construction shows us the path Harry takes from hopeful
adolescent to bitter adult with great clarity. When he makes
his final choice in love it has been preordained from the moment
he discovered the truth about his parents marriage. I don't
know if Crazy
Love is one of the
most depressing movies I've ever seen... or one of the most
uplifting. I guess it all depends on how you view the ending.
I've been thinking about it for days now an I'm no closer to
one side or the other —
but I can say that it is one very good movie. The third
act is a very faithful adaptation of Charles Bukowski's short
story The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, CA. This segment
was originally filmed as a short called Foggy Night but
on its strength was expanded into a full-length feature. In
leaving Bukowski's work behind, the filmmakers manage to enhance
the story in brilliant ways. Starting as they did by telling
the end of the story, with a burnt-out husk of a man, they back
up to show us how he got there. This creates a classic tragic
character to rival any I've seen before in film. When I learned
that the film had been written 'backwards' I was stunned. The
movie builds so perfectly to its climax that I could hardly
believe it was possible. I've seen dramas that were written
in a more conventional fashion that don't have half the effect
of Crazy Love. I can only conclude
that having such a powerful finale gave the writers a very clear
narrative end to build toward and boy, do they! By seizing on
the various ways of viewing romantic love and allowing Harry
Voss' life to show one natural, sad progression they found the
perfect prelude to Bukowski's fiction. I understand the author
liked the Foggy Night short but I can only think he would
have loved the whole movie.
This is a very good
film... But is the story ultimately sad? Is Harry's final
choice helpless or hopeful? The film is smart enough to leave
that determination to the individual viewer in much the same
way a good fiction writer often does.
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| Mondo
Macabro has given this rarely seen Belgian film a strong presentation
on DVD. I have no idea what the film looked like theatrically
but here it looks gorgeous. The image is clear and very sharp
with great colors showing off the very detailed production design.
Apparently this is a Hi Def anamorphic transfer and if this is
a good example, then I'm sold. The movie is letterboxed at 1.66:1;
the soundtrack is rich, allowing the frequent songs to make their
point without disrupting the dialog. The film is in Flemish with
removable white English subtitles that convey both the crudity
and poetry of the language used very well. Luckily MM has gathered
some solid extras to shed a bit of light on the film's history.
There is a 30-minute 'making of' featurette that combines behind-the-scenes
video shot during production with recent interviews of the writer,
director and producer. There's even some great footage of Bukowski
meeting with the filmmakers that gives an idea of what he thought
of the enterprise. This piece is a nice look at the way Crazy
Love came together, with the most interesting information
coming from lead actor Josse de Pauw. After filming Foggy Night
he lobbied hard to play the teenaged Voss, even though he was
33 at the time. He lost a lot of weight and found that walking
around in public wearing the full acne makeup gave him the insight
to handle the role. The other big extra is a 25-minute interview
with director Dominique Deruddere, covering his early career up
through his recent Oscar nomination. Speaking very good English,
Deruddere is quite honest and enthusiastic —
sometimes giving more information
than would be considered politically correct. Another
great effort from Mondo Macabro.
11/14/04 |
