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Crazy Love (1987) 
 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092794/

Flemish language with English subtitles

Crazy Love is a 1987 film directed by Belgian director Dominique Deruddere. The film is based on various writings by author and poet Charles Bukowski. It was the first Flemish-Belgian filmed to receive a theatrical release in North America.

The film follows Harry Voss during three important days of his life. The first is as a youth, the second on the day of his high school graduation and the third as a lonely, middle-aged man.

  Josse De Pauw  ...  Harry Voss's father / Harry Voss at 19 / Harry Voss at 33  
  Geert Hunaerts  ...  Harry Voss at 12  
  Michael Pas  ...  Stan  
  Gene Bervoets  ...  Jeff  
  Amid Chakir  ...  Bill  
  Florence Béliard  ...  The Princess / The corpse  
  Karen van Parijs  ...  Moeder van Harry  
  Carmela Locantore  ...  Gina  
  An Van Essche  ...  Liza Velani  
  Doriane Moretus  ...  Marina  

Crazy Love begins with the sound of yowling cats behind an image of a whopping big moon, and immediately a fervid, sensuous mood is established. The film is adapted by Dominique Deruddere from stories by Charles Bukowski, and in bringing this material to the screen the 31-year-old Belgian has fashioned a work that is complicated, troubling and, in places, hard to stomach. At the same time, he has traded in Bukowski's rowdy tone for something softer, less raucous and American -- something more poignant. 

The film is staged in three episodes, each describing a moment in the unfortunate life of Harry Voss. In the opening sequence, Harry (Geert Hunaerts) is a fresh-faced farm lad of 12, with bright, hungry eyes. When we first see him, he is sitting enraptured in a movie theater as a virginal fairy-book princess is rescued (and passionately kissed) by her brave knight lover. Afterward, Harry spies a photo of the movie princess in the display out front, and sneaks it into his shirt. 

These early scenes, which show a young boy's vision of the world as a place of poetic romance, have the texture of a reverie. The subsequent scenes, in which Harry is taken in hand by his older and more experienced friend Stan (Michael Pas) or walks in on his parents as they are making love, are designed to point up the discrepancy between the boy's downy visions and the practical realities of sex. These are harsh lessons, and they take their toll. Lying in bed one night, he takes out his picture of the movie princess and, looking into her eyes, begins sadly, almost grimly, to masturbate. 

No face could be more the opposite of that movie-star face, or more unlovable, than Harry's in the film's second episode. In this section, which is set seven years later, Harry (Josse De Pauw) is a sensitive-souled 19-year-old, with a face so ravaged by acne that he hides himself away, sitting alone in the dark, tormenting himself with anthemic pop love songs like Roy Orbison's "Love Hurts." So ashamed of his festering pustules that he skips his high school graduation, Harry writes poetry and pines away for Liza (Anne Van Essche), a cool, delectable blond in his class. And when he recites a verse he's written for her to one of his classmates, the boy persuades him to attend their graduation ball, where, he promises, Harry's placid dream girl will look past his foul eruptions and see the poet in his eyes. 

We know from our own reactions to Harry how unlikely this is. The toughest part isn't looking at Harry's face, though that's hard enough; it's witnessing the revulsion and self-hatred he feels looking into the mirror, and the misery he endures as a result of this imprisonment inside his own horrible flesh. 

For this reason, the credit here should go to De Pauw, and not the film's makeup artist. This is a powerful, corrosive, unstintingly tough-minded performance. And though Deruddere's romanticism in the first section is muzzy and nonspecific, it has a knife-edged sharpness in the second. After an unfulfilling moment in the back seat of a car with his best friend's girl, Harry wraps his head, mummylike, in toilet paper and confidently leads Liza out onto the dance floor. Holding her gently in his arms, he imagines himself as someone he will never be, saying things he can never say. And though it's a moment of soaring triumph -- like the one in the movie that opens the film -- you can feel him dying too. The look in his eyes as they peek out from behind his tissue mask is blighted. Not only does love hurt, it kills. 

Crazy Love is a little known eighties cult film that traces a boy's life through three key events. The film is Belgian produced; based around three stories by cult writer Charles Bukowski and brought to life by Belgian director Dominique Deruddere. Crazy Love does not have a particularly good reputation these days, although it apparently caused quite a stir upon its release and that isn't all that surprising considering the subject matter; although to be honest, nothing in this film particularly shocked or offended me. The central character is Harry Voss, who we first meet as a young kid who is learning about sex from his friend, with the aide of a few loose women. We then pick up a few years later and Henry is a schoolboy, befallen by an extreme case of acne that leads to him being rejected by the opposite sex and ridiculed by his peers. The third and final chapter sees the once bright young boy as a drunken waster who cuts a stark contrast to the boy we saw in both the first and second chapters of the film.

The three parts of the film are all incredibly different and the director succeeds in creating an atmosphere to carry this off. Crazy Love is a 'coming of age' film; a favourite subject among Hollywood 'cookie cutter' filmmakers, but this one is about as far from the mainstream as you can get. The first segment is the lightest of the three, but still packs a punch as we watch the subject discovering sex and eventually getting acquainted with his hand. The second segment focuses more on the idea of teenage alienation and sees the film take a darker turn as the sensitive young man is rejected by all the girls because of his deforming acne. This provides a nice opener to the third section, which is completely dark and dismal and probably what earned the film its reputation - the ending is not something that many will forget in a hurry! Overall, it's not really surprising that this film hasn't gone down as an all time 'classic, but it certainly has its place among cult fans and that isn't surprising either. Be sure to catch this film if you want something a bit different!