Darío Grandinetti, Sandra Ballesteros, Nacha Guevara

Oliveiro is a young poet living in Buenos Aires where sometimes he has to sale his ideas to an advertising agencie to make a living or exchange his poems for a steak. In Montevideo, he met a prostitut...( read more  read more... )e, Ana, with whom he fell in love. Back in Buenos Aires, he accept a contract with a publicity agencie to get the money for three days of love with her. Will he get what his searching for when his ideal of love's pleasure is literaly going in levitation while making love?

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95% liked it

3,648 ratings

R, 2 hrs. 6 min.

Directed by: Eliseo Subiela

Release Date: September 9, 1994

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DVD Release Date: November 8, 2005

Stats: 246 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (246)


  • April 14, 2008
    Although it has some big flaws, there's something really alluring about El Lado Oscuro del Corazón. Oliveiro is a poet whose life transcurs between Buenos Aires and Montevideo, engaging in conversation with Death, reciting, and looking for the woman who flies. Eventually he sells...( read more) his ideas to advertising agencies-for money. One day he meets a prostitute in a cabaret in Montevideo and realizes that she's the one for him. The one thing he looks for in a woman is that she can fly while they are making love. From that moment on, his efforts concern getting the money to buy enough time with her so that they can fly together.

    Since the script is basically constituted of poems by Mario Benedetti (and also Argentinian poets), it's beautiful through and through. To Subiela's credit, I can say that the insertion of poetry in the story never comes off as cheesy. Dario Grandinetti's performance is excellent, he embodies Oliveiro perfectly and the way he recites the poetry is largely responsible of the beauty of the film.

    ELODC is, in brief, about the search for love, and the struggle between staying true to the art or going for the money that seems to come up often in stories about creative, tortured minds.

    Stylistically, there' s nothing new here. The flaws, in fact, I find are mostly in the rather corny special effects and the pretty bad choice of jazzy soundtrack. I think silence would have done wonders for the film, especially during some key moment when the music interferes with the action. The self-awareness is what differences this from a truly surrealist movie. Other than that, it's a wonderful experiment and a declaration of love to poetry, hope, and illusion.
  • October 9, 2009
    gracias a esta pelicula descubri a uno de mis directores favoritos subiela, de mis guiones favoritos, con los mejores dialogos del cine.
  • July 11, 2009
    A poem that became a movie, nit the regular one, not the standart one... Benedetti will be always huge
  • March 30, 2009
    Oliverio... y nada más.
  • March 28, 2009
    No thankyou - Not interested
  • February 2, 2009
    Ah esta genial! es cursi pero chida! me gusto mucho
  • January 25, 2009
    BIG SCREEN. Estará poblada de clichés y arquetipos comunes, pero se mantiene como una película hermosa y sólida. / May be populated with cliches and common archetypes, but it remains a beautiful and solid movie.
  • January 24, 2009
    poética y medio frita al mismo tiempo, sorprendente propuesta
  • April 25, 2008
    Ecxelente. La consumacion.
  • January 24, 2008
    Who said poetry can't be popular? Another masterpiece.

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