A hole in my heart (Ett hall i mitt hjärta)

From his debut feature, Fucking Åmål, Swedish director Lukas Moodysson has always pushed boundaries in terms of subject matter, but his most recent, A hole in my heart, is by far his most transgressive. Shot under extreme secrecy and set in a dingy suburban apartment, the film features some of the most shocking and unsettling images in recent memory. Moodysson focuses on Rickard and his painfully shy son Eric, who spends most of his days holed up in his room, listening to spectacularly abrasive industrial music, presumably in an attempt to drown out what’s going on in the rest of the apartment. His father, an amateur pornographer, is shooting his latest opus with a friend Geko and a young woman named Tess. Moodysson is, to some degree, satirizing the whole reality television trend and its faux celebrities. That said, as relentless as the film is, there are some grace points, most notably Eric’s brief, stilted conversations with Tess. Suffused with a near apocalyptic rage, A hole in my heart is a deeply courageous and disturbing film. (Toronto Filmfestival)