Mondo Macabro?s release of Crazy Love is a strange blend of the highbrow and the grotesque, like a Troma film picked up by Criterion. The film in question is a beautiful, strange, but ultimately horrific film that feels like the sticky residue underfoot at a street carnival. Though it dwells in repugnance, Crazy Love is rife with artistry and compassion.
The film depicts three distinct moments in the life of Harry Voss (Josse De Pauw, Everybody?s Famous! and Geert Hunaerts, Team Spirit). As a young boy, he is stricken by the notion of pure romantic love when he sees a movie starring a flawless princess (Florence B?liard). He struggles to reconcile this pure notion with the evidence of his own family?s prosaic life. When he confides in his friend Stan (Michael Pas, Team Spirit), Stan introduces Harry to the truth about sex and adult relationships.
We then fast-forward to Harry?s teenage years, when he is the unfortunate victim of obscene acne. Harry becomes reclusive; still, he holds to his ideals about romance. His friend Jeff (Gene Bervoets, The Flying Dutchman) tries to hook Harry up with a date, but it goes badly.
It will be many years before Harry makes a real breakthrough, and in a strange way the Princess is central to his epiphany.
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The overall effect is an outrageous psychosexual journey fraught with painful moments. As a viewer you begin the journey with sweet innocence, struggle through a painful adolescence, and finally realize that the horror of an abject adulthood has snuck up and overwhelmed you. By the time you figure out that Crazy Love is the kind of film you might not choose to be watching, you?re already invested. It is like when your mother distracted you with lollipops while the doctor plunged the syringe into your arm.
When you throw the bevy of quality extras into the mix, you?re left with a strange synthesis of dubious content and highbrow criticism. On one hand there are trailers for B movies with fake blood and bountiful breasts, and a feature film with perverse undercurrents. One gets the sense that Mondo Macabro typically deals in less stellar efforts. On the other hand, the depth and detail of the featurettes would complement a minor masterpiece. The featurettes are packed with information, even if Dominique Deruddere does come across as a depraved alcoholic at times.
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