Lust in the Time of Heartache (2014) User Reviews

pretentious pseudo-intellectual blather

[slowhand-692-736979 · 1/10 · 4 March 2015]

Can't believe I wasted ten minutes of my life on a load of poorly recorded pretentious pseudo-intellectual blather and some overgrown adolescents playing "ninja" in slow motion. There's no coherent message or plot here, just random vignettes which appear to have no connection at all to the plodding monotone of the narrator who intones a series of vapid observations about life.

The audio is poorly recorded, apart from the narration and some "clangy" sound effects in the action sequence its mostly inaudible. Acting is wooden and would be sub-par for the average grade school production as would the silly ninja play-fighting.

Only gets one star because there is no option for zero stars.

Not a film.

[hennesseyam · 1/10 · 9 November 2014]

Sometimes non-professionals and film industry outsiders use their unique perspective to create interesting works of cinema that challenge our perception of the medium and exist outside of convention.

Usually though, the result is not good (much like anyone's first experiments with an art form that is unfamiliar to them.) This is fine except when the creator tries to inflate the piece into something much more than it actually is. In this case David Aurini and his friends decided to play Bruce Lee under a bridge and call it a surrealist, neo-noir film.

The entire first half of the video is just Aurini acting the part of brooding, no-nonsense genius as he drifts through different scenes of unhappy, bickering men and women. It's difficult to draw any meaning from this because Aurini's narration is about as captivating as an economics lecture, and the scenes which are supposed to serve as some sort of counterpoint to his diatribe, are inaudible. There was no sound mix in this video. I doubt there was a proper mic. Aside from Aurini's droning spiel you mostly just hear the lilting score and a couple of sound effects that were crudely dropped in.

To actually delve into a technical criticism of the video's cinematography would be both cruel and missing the point. Like doing a close reading of a 1st grader's journal assignment when really you're just trying to see if he could spell a few words right. That said, Lust in the Time of Heartache doesn't manage to spell many words correctly.

The last five minutes are pretty boring. The diatribe (of course) continues, but for some reason Aurini's character is being attacked by a bunch of dadly henchmen. You know how your 14 year-old cousin makes videos of him and his friends play fighting and puts them on Youtube? It's exactly like that. Fortunately this does lead to the only worthwhile moment in the entire video. A guy gets stabbed in the groin. It's pretty funny. If you'd rather not waste your time watching this movie just to see a groin stab, I'll save you the hassle and just tell you that it's at 6 minutes and 20 seconds in. He gets both kicked and stabbed in the groin.

All-in-all, this movie way too proud of itself considering that all its got is one decent nut shot in 10 minutes of molasses mouthed dreck.

A "short film" in name only

[whitehawk115 · 2/10 · 31 May 2020]

"Lust in the Time of Heartache" is a fairly interesting title for this film, given that both elements alluded seem to be more or less vacant from the final product. We don't exactly see much "lust"- the film shows several people flirting half-heartedly, in a manner that suggests they were racing to get finished and collect their paychecks. "Heartache", likewise, isn't really a thing. So what is this nine-minute oddity about? Well, here's a short summary:

-The film opens with a shot of a restuarant with an odd color filter applied, with Davis Aurini's narration starting. The narration at first seems like it might have promise, with Aurini's "God help us all" line foreshadowing an amusing story. However, after the first few seconds the film discharges any hint of levity or self-awareness. -We see two couples inside the shop making small-talk. The poor sound quality makes their conversations feel like background noise, and the actors seem to barely be present emotionally. The narrator, represented by a man inside the bar, lapses into a soliquiy about how screwed up our ideas of romance are that drones on for about five minutes. After the nameless figure (who I'll call Hat Guy since he wears one for most of the video) leaves, he walks around the city, commenting on the people interacting outside in an unbearably pretentious and almost judgemental tone. It's difficult to care about what's happening for this segment at all. -Near the five minute mark, Hat Guy passes by a group of sharply dressed men standing up against a wall. The music takes an ominous turn, before the film suddenly turns black and white. -The men start attacking Hat Guy using various melee weapons, and our chatty protagonist fights back with a pair of daggers. The fight choreography in this half is painfully bad. For some reason, a number of strange sound effects and animated splashes of blood are present, disrupting the neo-noir format that this section is clearly trying to emulate. As the fighting goes on, the narrator continues his spiel, this time turning the subject to a bizarre soliquiy about violence. -Hat Guy is eventually overwhelmed, disarmed, and incapacitated by a brutal strike to the head. He wakes up later, however, with color returning to the film. The story ends with our hero looking out over a river, and the narrator claiming "The secret to living in this world is simply this: to find something to die for."

The reason I'm not giving this a one-star review is because it's almost somewhat funny. The sudden tonal shifts are enough to make you laugh out loud the first time you see them, and watching a group of grown men "sword-fighting" in a public park is an image that will stick with you for a while. Otherwise, this movie has no reason to exist.

Oh, and the narration? I've said it's pretentious, but here's a few good samples:

> "If you don't know how to love, all you know is hate. Abuser, abused- two sides of the same coin." Well that's an uncomfortable claim.

> "We've become nothing but a bunch of well-dressed apes."

>"The thing I hate most about seeing the powerful abuse the weak is knowing that the weak did something to deserve it." Okay, alone this just sounds like victim-blaming, but the scene it plays over in the film makes it even weirder. What happens is that a homeless(?) man asks a woman for change, and for some reason she starts berating him for not being rich like her. When he calls her a "stupid cow" under his breath, she kicks and hits him with her handbag before leaving. This sequence immediately raises a few questions. How exactly does the homeless dude "deserve" being attacked for a completely harmless insult? (The scene is framed as if he had catcalled her, but that's not what actually happens.) Would a scene in which a homeless women is physically struck for insulting a rich man be shown the same way? Why is a film by a self-proclaimed MRA presenting female-on-male violence as innately justified and okay?

> "Your ancestor is the caveman who triumphed over the others... your ancestor is the caveman who knew how to kill." Or he could be the one who realized that burying human waste means you don't die of disease as often.

> "If pain is weakness leaving the body, maybe heartache is sentimentality leaving the soul."

All in all, LitToH is best described as the story of someone with the talent of Tommy Wiseau trying to be Quentin Tarantino. The resulting film has nothing of substance to say, and not much more capacity to entertain.

An interesting filming debut

[georgesealmery · 8/10 · 28 February 2015]

This interesting short piece is Davis Aurini's producing, writing and acting film debut. Aurini has obtained recognition as a manosphere you tuber and blogger and is currently filming a documentary on the notorious and controversial Anita Sarkeesian. As usual in Aurini's work, the film is an acquired taste. His style is highly intellectual and (superficially) very pessimist. This will play quite well with Aurini's fan base and hopefully expose his work to a wider audience. The film's forte is its sheer audacity: a philosophical rant dressed up as a film noir martial arts hybrid. Its drawback is that it is very experimental and was made with a shoe string budget. The viewer that watches with an open mind and paying attention should come out satisfied.

Great potential for a limited audience

[jdamman · 7/10 · 27 February 2015]

Critiques of art, no matter the medium, always boil down to potential: Was it there, and how much was achieved? "Lust in the Time of Heartache" is overflowing with it, but between amateur production-values and the radical criticism of common society there is little room for an audience beyond the creators' closest circles.

At its core, "Lust" is painting a picture of human relations using narration and visual metaphor. On both counts there is sufficient detail to understand the creators' message, though neither strike me as compelling enough to reach beyond the genre and the "true believer" demographic.

The narration is thick and long-winded, which would not be a problem on its own were it not for the repeated interruptions in action and dialogue on-screen. This is most prominent during the first half where narration trails into emphasized parts of the dialogue. The length and breadth of the narrator's script would be much better served by a longer, slower-paced film, if not an article or a novel. Combined with low production-values, the resulting narration is easily seen as pretentious.

The visual metaphors, too, are wanting in refinement. We see limited, public interactions between people in broken relationships, which does little to ram home the consequences of such things. The narrator 'mentions' these consequences, but the visual aids do not back up the sense of urgency or the costs of failure. The protagonist's reactions to these sights are conspicuously absent, and although one might assume that the protagonist is also the narrator, one's deep and bitter observations do not match the stoic, ram-rod, eyes-on-the-horizon marching of the other. Finally the effect of the assailants, standing in as the protagonist's own failings and fallen nature, is muted. They appear all at once, long before any relationship to the protagonist is presented by the narrator, without any link to, say, specific vices or failings, and are only vaguely linked to the protagonist by black clothing, whereas one might expect identical outfits, even haircuts, or even 'clones'. Certain nuances are underplayed or disjointed from the narration, such as only one instance of a disarmed villain simply pulling another weapon out of his pocket (futility?) Again the protagonist has very few reactions to these events short of fighting back without expression, at least until he is defeated.

My opinion is that the creators bit off more than they could chew. The narrative being presented could very well have been compelling for a broader audience, but the balance between narration and action is lopsided, the action is rushed while the narration lags due to length, and ultimately the fight scene, with intriguing style if nothing else, lacks feeling until the protagonist loses.

I give it a 7 out of 10 for boldness, and out of acknowledgement that there's a great film hidden underneath. It is unfortunate that some viewers may take the narrative as being "soiled," but that's the price paid for attempting something so ambitious as an early project.

Worthy

[samuelh-30927 · 6/10 · 28 February 2015]

This is one of the more worthwhile budget short films out there.

The acting, while not perfect, is better than one would expect from a film of this type. The score is well done and the narration is thought provoking. The fight scene is pretty camp, but it neither suffers from trying too hard, nor is it objectively bad, however, it is definitely not this film's strongest element.

The only real issue is that on the technical side, the production value really shows; regarding the audio quality, visual quality and one rather obvious digital effect.

This film is insightful and has some fun moments. For it's faults it is worth watching, and offers something for everyone to take away from the experience.