Event

DOOMED LOVE

Dir. Andrew Horn, 1984.
USA, 70 mins.

Made in piecemeal payments while director Andrew Horn (THE NOMI SONG) was working as a graphic artist in Koch-era Manhattan, DOOMED LOVE is a delectable hunk of sunken downtown treasure ripe for rediscovery. Painter Bill Rice (SUBWAY RIDERS, THE VINEYARD) stars as Andre, an aging professor of romantic literature who decides, in the films doleful introductory passage, to commit suicide after losing the love of his life. Andre is tragicomically unsuccessful, but the attempt leads to a new acquaintance with a psychiatric nurse named Lois (Rosemary Moore), with whom he uncorks a kind of under-acknowledged romance of the soul.

Whatever margins that once separated Andres work as an academic and his reasons for going on (or not) have completely dissolved; Rices monologues scripted by the great playwright Jim Neu set a tone of droll monotony and piercing repetition. During a slide show of pre-Raphaelite paintings, Andre provides a clue to what Horn and his collaborators are up to:

You can say what you want about the past / I think thats true/ But, not to pay attention is not to be immune / I think thats true/ It may be finished / But it isnt over / Where have I seen that before?/ Believe me / Many of our most cherished dreams / Believe me / Many of our most cherished dreams have a life of their own/ Where have I seen that before? Look around / Look around / Believe me / I could really let myself go / The world history of emotion / You dont know the names / But you remember the stories.