ONE FROM THE HEART
by Janet Maslin for The New York Times January 17, 1982
‘One From the Heart’ has so little in the way of story or tension, in fact, that the effect
of Mr. Coppola’s dazzling technical feats is almost superfluous at times; it’s as if Rembrandt were painting Easter eggs. From its very first moments, which consistof a credit
sequence so beautiful that it’s better than plenty of full-length movies, ‘One From the
Heart’ promises a grace and radiance that is only intermittently warranted by the material.
EDITION
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There are ravishing things in this movie, plenty of them, enough to mark it as a brave
and original effort. But the bravura moments are as apt to end abruptly as they are to
flow easily together. Despite the technological advances that allowed Mr. Coppola to
construct a kind of video blueprint for his work, a blueprint he could edit and modify
in the planning stages, ‘One From the Heart’ is often choppy enough to break its own
spell. A spell is what it is, though: Mr Coppola clearly means to weave the lights,
colors, music and dance into something magical.
So when a woman looks into a mirror and speaks of the man who’ll make her dreams
come true, that man’s face materializes beside hers. When lovers quarrel and separate,
their images are somehow united on the screen. When they make up, the rain stops
and the darkness lifts, and their home is bathed in warm yellow light, while the birds
down the street begin singing. There’s not a moment in ‘One From the Heart’ when Mr.
Coppola isn’t after something romantic and glorious, something inexpressibly grand. At
times, he even gets what he’s after.