LoveTrue | Little White Lies

LoveTrue

10 Feb 2017 / Released: 10 Feb 2017

Words by Aimee Knight

Directed by Alma Har’el

Starring Abraham Boyd, Angel Boyd, and Harmony Boyd

A blue, furry creature with its mouth wide open in an intense expression against a colourful, blurred background.
A blue, furry creature with its mouth wide open in an intense expression against a colourful, blurred background.
4

Anticipation.

An effervescent essay looking at love through a kaleidoscope.

3

Enjoyment.

High on its own supply of blurred (non)fiction lines.

3

In Retrospect.

Better suited to Vimeo Staff Picks than brick + mortar cinemas.

Bom­bay Beach direc­tor Alma Har’el serves up an intrigu­ing paint­ed poem of a film.

I wish we could make a movie only about good things,” laments Will Hunt (code name: Coconut Willie). A lovelorn surfer and sin­gle father, he’s one of three char­ac­ters – it’s fair to call them that – in this hybrid doc­u­men­tary by Bom­bay Beach direc­tor Alma Har’el. Tra­vers­ing the notion of love in all its colours, shades and shapes, LoveTrue is less of an essay film and more like a paint­ed poem. With its open­ing riff on a pas­sage from Corinthi­ans lilt­ing over wist­ful imagery, it’s clear from right out of the gate that this is an exer­cise in style as much as substance.

Willie is your basic young man, liv­ing the sim­ple Hawai­ian life of a coconut water ven­dor, doing his darn­d­est to raise his baby right. In Alas­ka, Warham­mer fan Blake was born a nerd,” but now must bal­ance a rela­tion­ship with her boyfriend and her job as an exot­ic dancer. Vic­to­ry lives in New York with her large fam­i­ly, save her mum who has seem­ing­ly desert­ed the prodi­gious singer, along with her sib­lings and their father. Despite the dis­parate loca­tions, each of Har’el’s sub­jects has been touched by the uni­ver­sal expe­ri­ences of love, faith and hope.

The doc­u­men­tary grap­ples with love’s many guis­es: roman­tic, parental, reli­gious, voca­tion­al. It also depicts the heart’s dark­er reper­cus­sions, such as Willie’s latent incli­na­tion toward vio­lence, Blake’s tight grip on child­hood trau­ma, and Victory’s blind­ness to her father’s abu­sive ten­den­cies. Curi­ous­ly, pla­ton­ic love is not exam­ined. Though Will, Blake and Vic­to­ry are all young adults, they appear to be lon­ers, lack­ing in close social ties.

Rather, their fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships are a focal point for Har’el. Love’s evil step­sis­ters Hate, Fear and Depres­sion man­i­fest in the film via divorce, bul­ly­ing, lone­li­ness, and the endur­ing con­se­quences of sep­a­rat­ing chil­dren from their par­ents. Inti­mate obser­va­tion­al and inter­view sequences reveal the char­ac­ters’ pas­sions, while dream­like (some­times night­mar­ish) drama­ti­sa­tions bring deep-seat­ed anx­i­eties to life.

Underwater divers in dark surroundings.

This film is aes­thet­i­cal­ly stun­ning, as per Har’el’s rep­u­ta­tion (she’s been laud­ed by MTV, She eld Doc/​Fest, The Inde­pen­dent Spir­it Awards and oth­ers). But even­tu­al­ly the recre­ations become brazen and lose grav­i­tas. Using sub­ti­tles in place of con­ven­tion­al voiceover is nov­el but obfus­cat­ing, and makes it even hard­er to sym­pa­thise with char­ac­ters that aren’t entire­ly like­able. Y’know, like peo­ple in the real world, such as LoveTrue’s exec­u­tive pro­duc­er Shia LaBeouf.

As direc­tor, pro­duc­er, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er and edi­tor, Har’el has a sin­gu­lar vision. Fas­ci­nat­ed by per­for­mance, she casts actors and fam­i­ly mem­bers in fan­tas­ti­cal scenes. Victory’s father impro­vis­es with actress Chineze Enek­wechi, who plays his estranged wife and even­tu­al­ly vis­its her real life’ coun­ter­part. Merg­ing fact, fic­tion and imag­ined nar­ra­tives may be en vogue (see also: Taxi Tehran, Kate Plays Chris­tine) but here it feels forced and affect­ed. Smoke-and-mir­ror trick­ery does not com­pen­sate for dull sub­jects with uncom­pelling arcs.

Is it imper­a­tive for screen char­ac­ters to always be ami­able? Not at all. But in a film about love, it sure wouldn’t hurt. I’m not unique. I’m a human being,” con­fess­es Will Hunt. Like Blake and Vic­to­ry, he needs to learn to love him­self before he can be loved by oth­ers unconditionally.

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