A Wilderness in Your Heart

Everybody loves a good conversation. And when you’re in love, there’s nothing like those long spinning dialogues that stretch time out and widen your eyes and your heart, merging you with the other and drinking in words and feelings like guava nectar. Until that is, things go sour. A unique blend of ‘Before Sunset,’ ‘My Dinner with Andre’ and ‘Lost Highway’, Robin Dunn’s first feature film “A Wilderness in Your Heart” explores the light and dark sides of passionate love, eros and thanatos through just such a sweet n’ sour conversation. Julia and Sam, the young lovers in question, ruthlessly dissect themselves and the world in an effort to get ever closer to the mystery of the space between people, that ineffable, interstitial electricity that Julie Delpy’s character in ‘Before Sunrise’ calls the only kind of God she believes in. They succeed and fail, they are happy drunk and homicidally drunk, they lead us on the familiar journey of passionate love in unfamiliar ways. Robin Dunn (“Sam”) occupies the suggestively megalomaniacal role of writer/director/actor/editor/producer. Experienced indie film buffs know that having one chef and only one chef in the kitchen assures either a culinary masterpiece or a rancid nightmare. ‘You, Me and Everyone We Know’ and ‘The Brown Bunny’ are two good, recent examples of both indie flavors.