The Saddest Music in the World

I saw Guy Maddin's film last weekend, not really knowing much about it other than it's premise, which was too absurd to pass up. A double amputee parapalegic beer baroness with glass legs filled with her own beer holding a contest during Prohibition to find the saddest music in the world? Where do people come up with this stuff?

The film is an interesting conglomeration of styles from films before and around the era in which it is set. The 8 mm footage with the stereopticon lens is reminiscent of the earliest films, and the distorted sets created in a studio are reminiscent of the German expressionist films. This is combined with a 30's musical and conversational style, including bits of "Technicolor" thrown in for good measure. I would have to see the film again, but I would like to go back and see it again to determine the link between the scenes which are suddenly shot in color as compared to the grainy black and white images that grace the rest of the film.

Despite the quizzical looks from the three fellow moviegoers who occupied the theatre, I found myself laughing out loud quite a few times at the film's caustic humor. The matches between the music from each country are like something out of a gangland film, with each side advancing toward each other menacingly during their performance. Some of the countries who perform in the competition reflect Maddin's satirical side, including a winning performance from Serbia (of all places) and an entry from the "country" of Africa (as if we in North America don't know any of the individual nations on the continent).

The entwining of satire and comedy continues in the musical performances and the competition's radio commentators. Maybe it's just me, but the funeral dirges from some countries (most notably "Africa" and Scotland) are not really "sad" at all, as they are a bit loud and a bit too upbeat. The greatest offender is the American entry, who turns the competition into a showcase for his Broadway ambitions, eschewing the premise of the competition with the blessing of Lady Port-Huntley, who incidentally is his former-current lover. The idiotic commentators obnoxiously chatter over a loudspeaker even as the musicians are performing, delivering such priceless wisdom as "Siam is known for its dignity, twins, and cats."

The themes of the film revolve around the separation between the rich and the poor (one character enjoys a psychic connection with her tapeworm), American excess, Canadian self-loathing, humanity's relentless desire for the trivial and superficial over the meaningful and spiritual, the global domination of American pop culture, how the mass media controls the world, etc. However, none of these are really fleshed out in the film, but rather touched on briefly then tossed away in favor of the next idea.

Though the film is more style over substance, it is still thoroughly enjoyable for anyone who loves the cinema in all its forms.

This is a review of the DVD.

First off, Guy Maddin's films are an acquired taste. Second, it helps to be a film fan and to have a knowledge and love of early cinema to truly appreciate them. Third, you must be willing to give yourself over totally to his particular vision. Don't even try to fight it. Do all this and get ready to enjoy.

"The Saddest Music in the World " is a wonderful amalgam of comedy, drama,

tragedy and farce. It's got a cast of characters that are familiar and yet strange at the same time. Just when you think it's heading in one direction, it yanks you in another. It has an internal logic just like a dream.

The photography, art direction and sound design add to the uniqueness of the

experience. The film feels like an artifact, a lost film that was hidden away by a studio in the '30s because it was too wild and broke too many rules. In fact, it's film-making that defies the system.

The DVD contains a making of featurette that is enjoyable to watch. There are also 3 short films. Only Maddin could make a film with the title "Sissy Boy Slap Party" and make it funny.

Please take a chance and rent/buy this film. It's not the typical Hollywood

product (although it mines Hollywood's past) and for that we should be glad.

I also have to recommend another film by Guy Maddin- "Dracula: Pages from a

Virgin's Diary", a silent film ballet. I got it sight unseen and love it. The director's commentary was worth the price alone.

I'm a Guy Maddin fan. I have developed an addiction for his work. Thank God!

What could only be titled as Cinema of the Ridiculous, Maddin's latest masterpiece, about a no-legged beer queen who hosts a Winnipeg-set competition to see which nation has the saddest music in the world, is filled to the gills with wacky ideas, but the reason it's a great film is because of the heartfelt feeling behind it. Maddin's genuine love for the silent cinema that he emulates (and attachment to the pathetic characters he creates) makes it possible for him to sustain a comic tone without it ever becoming mocking.

Maddin manages to balance the grotesque comic caricature of Mark McKinney as the shady mustached businessman who tries to win the competition, and Maria de Medeiros, who gets life advice from her tapeworm, with the pathetic goth character that's McKinney's brother, who's had to deal with the loss of a son, and the glamorous Isabella Rossellini, who's had to deal with the loss of her legs. (I wonder if the fact that Rossellini lost her legs in a car accident caused by her performing fellatio is a nod to the Myth of Murnau.) There's almost a subliminal melodrama taking place with the theme of loss and hilarious depression (during The Depression). It's an exciting movie visually, but unlike the best of the silents that Maddin loves, it's not poetic in that slow, beautiful way -- it's too fast-paced, kinetic, and rough to achieve any sort of traditional beauty -- but it is a feast. The few scenes of gaudy color -- reds, blues, and odd flesh tones -- are as grainy as the black and white. Maddin is truly one of the most imaginative of directors and he has a firm grasp of the medium. In fact, there is at least one scene of slow, beautiful poetry -- a purely silent moment, near the end, that comes alongside the bloody murder of Rossellini's screams. 10/10

And I thought `Dogville' was stylized. Canadian writer/director Guy Maddin ("Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary,' "Archangel') has created a film like no other this year except possibly `Triplet's of Belleville.' `The Saddest Music in the World' is a `musical' set in Winnipeg in 1933, where Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini) is holding a contest to award $25,000 to the saddest music performer. In `Depression Era dollars,' no less.

Winnipeg has been declared by the London Times `the world capital of sorrow' for the fourth year in a row. What happens in the film can be categorized as surrealism of the sort that marries the Melies brothers in their `Trip-to-the-Moon' wackiest to `The Twilight Zone' in Rod Serling's most hilarious (and that's pretty unusual) moments. Shot in distressed mode with 8 mm blown up to be grainy and silent movieish, `Saddest' has blue-grays and silvers and occasional bursts of washed-out color that give it an otherworldly cast meant to satirize the old movies and create a new look built on nostalgia and freedom from convention that some call expressionism.

Some of the bizarre acts vying for the prize are Fyodor (David Fox), a veteran of World War I representing Canada, who plays a deathlike version of ''The Red Maple Leaves'' on an upright piano he has turned over, and Indian singers in Eskimo costumes, who dance to ''California Here I Come'' with sitars and banjos commemorating a 19th-century kayaking accident. All the time an iris lens blurs the edges of the film to recreate the ancient look of film found in a vault after 50 years.

That Lady Port-Huntly needs artificial legs is not as bizarre as the back story of how she came to need them, and that the new glass legs have local beer coursing through them is just another creative and absurdist touch. With a resemblance to the robot in `Metropolis,' she is an amalgam of strange and prophetic moments in film and culture. I know I'm not making much sense here-Trust me that this film is bizarre enough to satisfy the geekiest cultist in our audience. For the rest of us, just trying to appreciate all the signposts Maddin constructs to further his absurd and funny vision is exhausting. Wordsworth's thoughts apply because we at least hear `the still, sad music of humanity.'

'The Saddest Music in the World' is a kind of pastiche of 1920s film-making, with interspersed scenes in cod-Technicolour; but to really give a flavour of its oddness, I should say that it's the tale of an amputee brewery heiress with a pair of glass legs, filled up with beer (writer Kazuo Ishiguro borrowing from one of his own novels in the story of how she lost her originals). In truth, this is a very silly film, but it's almost a triumph, in that the silliness is controlled, with every crazy scene is consistent in tone and adding to the bizarre atmosphere. But it's hard to assert that the movie amounts to much more than a demonstration that it was technically possible to make it - it can't be taken seriously, and it's not really funny (rather, it's the sort of film that only makes you laugh because of its audaciousness in what it dares to pass off as comedy). But you certainly won't see too many other movies like it; and director Guy Maddin makes brilliant use of the heart-shaped face of Maria de Madeiros, which he makes look as if it really has just heard the saddest music ever.