Stylish, enigmatic, and singular in its vision, Sarah Adina Smith's Buster's Mal Heart is a film which effectively manipulates the mind of the audience with its challenging structure, delivering a film that is hit-or-miss when it comes to establishing its intentions, but endlessly intriguing due to its creative vision. Buster's Mal Heart opens documenting a man on the run from authorities, a grizzled, bearded man who survives the winter by breaking into people's empty vacation homes in the beautiful, secluded mountainside. Trapped in a cave and surrounded by the authorities, the man reflects on his past, having been a husband, and father, working night shifts as a hotel concierge to provide for his family. Living with his mother-and-law, who frustrates him on a daily basis, Buster is trapped between his mundane night job and the frustrations on the home front, wishing to get away to the secluded mountains where he believes he and his family would be much happier. His wife rejects the concept, unable to fathom how they could possible make that work, a novel concept to her but one that steeped in complete fantasy by her husband who is simply frustrated by his job as a night concierge. Manipulating narrative structure and intentionally making it hard for the audience to decipher between reality and fantasy, Buster's Mal Heart uses a science fiction style narrative to deconstruct grief and existential ideas, revealing a man who has abandoned society and retreated to a more primal concept of living after tragedy strikes. While much of Buster's Mal Heart feels up to interpretation, the film's various flashback sequences detail a man who has simply been worn down by the daily grind, tired of the numbing effects of consumerism that have stripped him of his independence and inability to be with his family. Using science fiction elements to keep the viewer guessing from start to finish, Sarah Adina Smith's Buster's Mal Heart slowly reveals itself as a singular vision of grief and acceptance, detailing a man who has escaped modern society as a coping mechanism to deal with his emotional pain associated with tragedy The film never confirms nor denies nearly anything throughout its running time, with Buster's perceived reality being filled with elements which are routinely regulated to fantasy or science fiction films, which makes the viewer question what is going on from start to finish. From start to finish, the viewer struggles to discern reality from fantasy, with the viewer being completely in the psyche of a character whose own mental stability is very much a question mark. Don't read anymore if you don't want me to spoil anything for you, but personally, I think all the fantastical elements of Buster's Mal Heart from the inversion, to the two versions of himself, one lost at sea, one in the mountains, are all meant as symbolic representations of his introspection, a man who is lost in a large, unforgiving world after the death of those he cares about, with his death in the end leaving him at peace, where he can finally be free with his family. Playing with ideas related to individualism, consumerism, and most importantly the effects of grief and trauma on the human psyche, Sarah Adina Smith's Buster's Mal Heart is a stylish and enigmatic experience, a film that is sure to trigger much discussion about exactly what it's trying to say.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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