brucetwo-2 Hi Bill--Hope you're enduring the snowstorms! Anyway--last night I watched the Guy Madden film on DVD--BRAND UPON THE BRAIN--I think that's the title. I imagine you've seen it, since it's his most famous film and it's been screened in NYC at festivals, etc. It's now part of the "Criterion Collection"--made in the 2000's. It's feature-length. Maybe I can see why a couple friends of mine out west thought it reminded them of our films.--The black and white and experimental visual techniques. But overall it reminded me more of David Lynch in a lower-budget underground way.It references the techniques and visual style of German Expressionist films and early silent filmmaking. It took me a while to get into it, but I'm glad I did. The story itself is a mixture of psychology, operatic exaggeration and general goofiness. Something about a possessive mother, weird father, sexually frustrated sister. As with David Lynch, I end up wondering if the director really has something to say or is just juxtaposing "cool" images and weird concepts. Well--my reaction anyway.(In the Extra Features, Madden says that the film is 97% accurate to his own childhood--meaning emotionally of course--not realistically!)The experimental film technique in this movie: in the extra feature section they said that they shot scenes with "multiple Super-8 cameras." I wondered if the whole film was shot that way--and where in 2002 they could get Super8 movie cameras --and S8 film! Gave everything a grainy retro look.It's mostly in black and white with a few fleeting color images. But with modern digital editing it could have all been shot in color and then b&w'd in editing. Anyway it was a heavy trip to sit through, but overall seems to have left me with mostly just a feeling of "mood."Also it's a Canadian film, with that whole "Canadian underground-filmmaker-community" vibe. (Remember the Canadian film we saw at Duke that referenced a lot of 1950's B Movies?--something about a guy living in a garage apartment and a pre-teen girl being infatuated with his film obsession--in campy color. Very much a pre-MOONRISE KINGDOM vibe.)Anyway, I'm glad I saw this film, but not sure if it left me with anything.--B

moviemanMA I really had no idea how I would react to this movie. I am fully aware of what Guy Maddin is capable of and that his films are anything but ordinary. My one fear coming into this movie was that the story wasn't going to be good enough to really grab hold of me. Within the first 10 or 15 minutes I was hooked. I have been very impressed with his technical skills thus far and this is no exception. The major difference here is that the story is so compelling. There are some flaws like the narration and I thought the ending could have been shorter, but overall I thought this was a fantastic production. It pays great homage to the silent era, in particular to some of Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau's work. Like most Maddin films, this is certainly not for everyone. Only those who are aware of what he does or are extremely open to new cinema experiences should venture out and watch this one.

zetes First of all, I have to say: finally! I was almost positive that I was going to have to wait for DVD for this one, and God knows how long that was going to take. Secondly, I have to speak my only criticism of the film up front: the live show experiment might have been something truly awesome. I'll never know. But I do know that the disembodied voice of Isabella Rossellini, which you'll find in the general release, and presumably on the DVD, is extremely distracting. It works once in a while, but I would much prefer Maddin to have had a slightly separate version that was only silent. Unfortunately, several sequences wouldn't be comprehensible without the spoken narration, so I doubt we'll find it gone on the DVD (though I do hope that they might include some of the other narrators they used in the live show). Thankfully, as the film progresses, she pops up less and less. If not for this, I would have had no problem calling this a masterpiece.What to say about Brand Upon the Brain!? It's a Maddin film, and if you've seen his other films, you know pretty much what to expect. Not that his style hasn't varied between films (although all of his films since his first huge success, Heart of the World, have existed in a similar silent film milieu), but he is just so far beyond what anyone else has ever done, his style can be called entirely unique. As are all of the director's films, Brand is a hilarious nightmare. Maddin creates situations that can only ever exist in the subconscious. The plot of this one includes a lighthouse orphanage, a mad scientist and his sexually repressed wife, teenage detectives à la Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, lesbian erotica, incest and the haunting presence of dead memories. Maddin is sometimes criticized as being little more than a snarky jokester, but the more I watch his films, the more I disagree with that assessment. His films are, of course, comedies. All of his films are meant to be funny. But I can also feel the pain, the yearning and emotional honesty behind his work. If the movies illustrate tapestries of the dreamworld, as I am certain they do, then the moods behind them, though melodramatized to high heaven, contain glimpses of the deeper truth. I think David Lynch is a rather similar director. Only where Lynch seems to look at the nightmares from the inside, Maddin's point of view is from that of a man who has just awoken. Nightmares sure are scary when we're in them, but they sure can seem ridiculous when recalled.

amy_payne2 I didn't know this was a silent movie with narration. I don't care for silent movies - the corny humor, flickering lighting and film, etc. I'm sure that attributes to the low score I assigned it. It was about chapter 8 before I found any interest in this story and had I had popcorn I may have thrown it at the screen. Maybe this appeals to the sci-fi crowd? The only thing missing was a zombie scene and a brain transplant. I went with two other people on a Friday night and there were a total of 6 people in the entire theater. Isabella Rosselinni narrated this movie - the one enjoyable aspect of the movie. No one left commenting how much they enjoyed this nor appreciated the unusual approach to telling this story. I cannot recommend this movie.