The black heart
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The black heart |
| Original title | Tell-Tale |
| Country of production | United Kingdom , USA |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2009 |
| length | 93 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Cuesta |
| script | Dave Callaham |
| production | Michael Costigan Ridley Scott Tony Scott Martin Shore Christopher Tuffin |
| music | David Buckley |
| camera | Terry Stacey |
| cut | Kane Platt, Billy Rich |
| occupation | |
| |
The black heart (original title: Tell-Tale ) is an American thriller drama directed by Michael Cuesta with Josh Lucas and Lena Headey in the leading roles. The film is loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe 's The Traitorous Heart and was produced by Ridley Scott and Tony Scott , among others . The film was shown for the first time in Germany on August 22, 2009 as part of the Fantasy Film Festival .
action
The opening credits show short scenes in which paramedics take care of a seriously injured man. When information about the injured person is passed on to the hospital, one learns that the person is an organ donor.
Terry Bernard is a single father to a daughter who has a genetic defect and cannot move her arms properly. Through Angela’s frequent hospital appointments, Terry met and fell in love with pediatrician Elizabeth Clemson.
Five months ago he himself received a new heart from an unknown organ donor that his body accepted well. Nevertheless, he is plagued by visions that his attending physician considers post-operative stress. During one of the follow-up examinations, Terry manages to look at his medical records, which allows him to find out the names of the donor and a paramedic. He wants to question this medic (Stanovich), but he reacts unusually dismissive. He tries to ask Stanovich a few questions about the donor, but the man becomes aggressive and attacks Terry. A scuffle breaks out and Stanovich is fatally injured.
Terry continues to be plagued by visions and unsettled. So he tries again to find out something about the donor of his heart and contacts Detective Van Doren, who does not believe Terry at first. After Terry has another vision in the hospital when he meets the colored male nurse Achterton, he follows him after work to a subway station and pushes him in front of a passing train. He's appalled by what he's done, but doesn't dare to confide in anyone. He doesn't even want to talk to Elizabeth about what has been bothering him lately.
Unexpectedly, Terry is visited by Van Doren, who seems to know that Terry is responsible for the death of Achterton and very likely also responsible for that of the medic Stanovich. He confronts Terry with his suspicion and now learns that Terry has the heart of Jean Vieillard within him. The man who died in a previously unsolved murder and on whose name the paramedic reacted so aggressively. Since Terry is very upset by the whole thing, he unexpectedly suffers a heart attack. Van Doren visits him the next day at the clinic and explains the circumstances surrounding Vieillard's death. He and his wife were killed by four intruders. Before they killed Vieillard with a blow to the head, they had brutally killed his wife in front of his eyes, so that he died with these pictures in his heart.
From Dr. Averman, Terry's doctor, he now has to find out that his body has adopted the blood type of the donor Jean Vieillard, as well as the entire immune system of the donor via the stem cells of his heart. He explains to Terry that this is a very rare occurrence, but that it is good news given his old immune system. Terry himself now fears that he will lose his mind because he is animated by the donor heart to bring the murderers of Vieillard to account by killing them. It is noticeable every time that when he meets one of Vieillard's murderers, his heartbeat accelerates and the reactions to his environment are delayed. This is how he recognizes Bernard Cochius, the third person involved in the Vieillard attack and a local health worker. He kills him too, causing Detective Van Doren to visit Terry again. He hands him an evidence against him found at the scene of the crime, by which he gives him to understand that he knows exactly that he has become an avenger and that he would tolerate it. He also hands him a suitcase with a revolver and, as Terry later learns, the policeman was close friends with Vieillard's wife.
Plagued by his conscience, Terry takes part in the funeral service of Bernard Cochius and recognizes another culprit through his noticeable heartbeat. Little does he know that the backers of a syndicate for illegal organ trafficking sent him out as a decoy to find the man who seems to have tracked them down. After Terry shoots the man in the heart, he collapses mentally and physically. He reveals to Elisabeth that he will die because his heart would force him to kill people. But it is not his heart that makes him pass out. Syndicate men found him and drugged him. When they want to kill Terry and inject him with something that makes his heart stop, he hears Elizabeth screaming in the next room. Since Vieillard witnessed the murder of his wife, this memory animates the heart to beat again and Terry can overwhelm and kill the surprised perpetrators.
Detective Van Doren, who is caught in the assassination by accident, is killed in a scuffle. When Elizabeth Terry admits some time later that it was she who bought the organ for him, his heart starts beating with the same rhythm as when he killed the murderers of his organ donor ...
criticism
"Tightly staged thriller based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, who tells the rather hair-raising story with skill and convincing actors."
Remarks
In early 2008, the media announced that an Australian woman had accepted the donor's blood type after an organ transplant and that there was no explanation for the blood type change. It is also stated that in very rare cases there has already been some success in preventing donor organs from being rejected by the immune system. However, the authors of the New England Journal of Medicine (“NEJM”) specifically pointed out that the successes were experimental studies that were only carried out in a few patients.
Web links
- Black heart in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ mbr: Josh Lucas follows Poe's footsteps. In: kino.de. G + J Entertainment Media GmbH & Co. KG, November 7, 2007, accessed on January 1, 2011 .
- ↑ The black heart. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ dpa: New blood group after transplantation. (No longer available online.) In: n24.de. SevenOne Intermedia GmbH, January 25, 2008, archived from the original on July 28, 2011 ; Retrieved January 2, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
