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By: Martyn Pedler
Date: 28th Nov 07
Format: Cinema
Mood: Make a therapy appointment now
WHAT
CRAZY LOVE
WHERE
PALACE VERONA, 17 OXFORD STREET, PADDINGTON AND PALACE NORTON STREET, 99 NORTON STREET, LEICHHARDT
WHEN
NOW SHOWING
WIN
WE HAVE TEN DOUBLE PASSES TO GIVEAWAY. JUST EMAIL WIN@TWOTHOUSAND.COM.AU WITH SUBJECT LINE ‘SO IT GOES' FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN.
WATCH THE TRAILER
HERE
Kurt Vonnegut once said "If somebody says, ‘I love you,' to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol-holder requires? ‘I love you, too.'"
As the new documentary CRAZY LOVE smacks you over the head, this quote will float before your eyes like Bugs Bunny seeing stars. At first, Burt and Linda Pugach's love story is played out through old pastel-tinted photographs and eponymous late-50s pop songs. Burt is odd, charming, owns his own plane, and is an unrepentant romantic. When the film shifts gear, replace "unrepentant" with "obsessive and violent".
It's not one of those tragedy-porn docos; it's very funny at times, and director Dan Klores' has absolute control in his pacing of the tabloid twists that are just too awful not to be true. CRAZY LOVE does sometimes seem to take too much smug joy in this trainwreck of a romance, but there are moments of unexpected sweetness here, too.
You'll be left, dazed, thinking that people love one another for all kinds of reasons, and missing Kurt Vonnegut more every day.