The title character of Scott McQuaids epic fantasy The Heartsmith is a sensitive, simple artisan (Aniq Durar) who literally mends broken hearts. His contact with the world outside his workshop is The Umbrella Man (Sylvester McCoy).
One night a girl with a heart of gold named Sundae (Imogen Storm) is attacked in an alley and The Heartsmith brings her into his shop and patches her up. He’s unable to mend her completely however, because her heart requires gold to complete the process. He knows she will fade and die if he can’t find gold.
In a darker place there’s an evil man named Mr. Cross (Diego Cresta) whose blackened, hard heart is also failing, but from corruption and violence. He hires an assassin, Dr. D (Zhang Quan) to find the gold he needs to counter the decay in his heart so that he may continue in his wicked ways.
The Umbrella Man provides The Heartsmith with a map to a place where gold might be found called Jagged Heights, a mountain that moves, so that he and Sundae may go there and get the gold she needs. The two young innocents and Dr. D. move toward a fateful clash at Jagged Heights. The Heartsmith, of course, is a lover, not a fighter, and cannot defeat Dr. D. through combat.
“A mountain that moves so that he and Sundae may go there and get the gold…”
Subtitled An Untold Bedtime Story, This tale would fit neatly into the worlds of Doctor Who or The Sandman, or even Wonderland. This impression is, of course, enhanced by the presence of a former Doctor Who, Sylvester McCoy. His Umbrella Man character could be The Doctor, moving pieces into place and giving the narrative a nudge here and there. He brings clients to The Heartsmith to be mended.
The time and place are vaguely contemporary, but also have a steampunk vibe. The Heartsmith’s workshop is buried in the basement of an industrial factory building. Geometries are twisted into strange angles. There are scenes in modern office buildings, and iPhones used, so perhaps this is an adjacent universe to ours, but where industrial revolution England has bled over into our timeline. The music is borrowed public domain classical for the most part, including Nessun Dorma from Turandot.
Scenes are almost all shot against green-screen backdrops, which lends more strangeness to the uncanny atmosphere of the film. While the story is engaging, the pace is glacial. Do not look for quick cut action scenes. The Heartsmith plays more like a feature-length dream sequence. A viewer looking for a moral to the story will find many to choose from. The core threads of the narrative run along the greased grooves of fairy tales told across the ages, populated with a novel gallery of colorful characters. McQuaid has pulled together an ambitious, ripping yarn with universal themes, on a minimal budget. While his reach sometimes exceeds his grasp, it is still charming overall.
"…an ambitious, ripping yarn with universal themes..."
