Des trous dans la tête !

I caught this yesterday at the NYFF and have to say that I think its Maddin's best since The Heart of the World. According to the Q&A he did after the screening and other info I read about the film in other places, he was given about five weeks to write the film (along with George Toles) and shot it in a little over a week. The breakneck speed of production time really shows in the imaginative and exuberant pace of the film. I won't mention too much of the plot -- any fan of other Guy Maddin films will know this would be futile to attempt -- but the character Guy revisits his island home, with its looming lighthouse, which was the site of a twisted orphanage run by his parents. Add a little remembrance of things past and Guy is overcome by an onslaught of memories of the crime, terror, lost loves, strange secrets, and cultish perversions of his youth involving his pan-optic raging mother and mad scientist father, as well as the strange and calamitous history of his childhood friend Neddie and his mysterious tics and spasms! And this is just the beginning. As with most of his work since Careful and Archangel (probably Maddin's twin masterpieces), Maddin employs a fast micro-edit style that dissolves any stable notion of continuity or classical narrative perspective. The result is a continually refreshing mix of a montage kino aesthetic (without the high theory) and an avant-gardist imagistic abstraction. This exhilarating style coupled with ever shifting melodramatic gusts gives an excellent picture of Maddin's recent work. And while the film admittedly cannot quite sustain the impact of its first twenty or twenty-five minutes, you cannot exactly find fault with a film as adventurous as this, which is attempting more (and doing it with less resources) almost any other film you will ever see. I can't imagine that anything could top the format it was presented in last night (live orchestra, foley artists, and Isabella Rosellini as the narrator) but I would urge anyone to go see it, in any circumstance, as soon as they can.

Here's the problem: Maddin is an impressive filmmaker. He is important and has made at least two films that are important to me.

But he is not a very interesting person. So when he applies his mastery to making a personal film - a film essentially about his dreams and demons, it turns into something of a tragedy for the opportunity misspent.

This really is a wonderful film in the way it is put together. The whole team seems be closely attuned, with a central role played by the editor. The sound effects are astonishing - and this is a silent film. The references, duly abstracted, from past masterworks are copious and respectful.

The narrative structure is suitably complex with manifold overlapping metaphors. The problem is that what we actually get directly from him is boring. Sex and mothers matter; dreams are real; nothing recedes. But we knew that better and more deeply than he shows.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

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.

Make no mistake about it, Canada's Guy Maddin is an enigma. We're talking about somebody who's main inspiration seems to be old Soviet newsreels (the Kino Pravda series,to be exact,by Dziga Vertov,the father of the newsreel). Watching 'Brand Upon The Brain' was very much like watching an old Kino Pravda (Cinema Truth,by the way,for those who don't speak Russian)newsreel while running a temperature about 110 degrees,while on a mixture of psychedelic mushrooms washed down with codeine based cough syrup (and I wouldn't want it any other way!). The plot (but who needs a plot in a film like this?) concerns a middle aged man who is by some strange twist of fate, named Guy Maddin, returns to the island he grew up as a young boy, and hasn't been back in over 30 years,to try & clean up the old lighthouse/orphanage he grew up in. All I can say is....man!....if I had as screwed up a childhood as Maddin had, I guess I would turn out making films as bizarre as Maddin's are (not that I'm saying that's bad,mind you---check out his short film 'Heart Of The World',which won an award some years back as the best experimental short at some film festival who's name I forget). Although the film features a cast of unknowns (on these shores at any rate),it benefits from a narrative by Isabella Rossilini (daughter of Ingrid Bergman & Roberto Rossilini),who is unfortunately never seen on screen. Honestly, you can do a lot worse than not seeing 'Brand Upon The Brain', but why would you want to?

I had recognized Guy Maddin with his short movie. I had watched it on my friend's suggestion, and I liked Maddin very much. After that, I was obsessed with Maddin. Maddin's unaccustomed editing and imaginative film language affected me. Maddin's last movie, "Brand Upon the Brain!", had a successful affect on me once again. Maddin's imagination combines his childhood memories in the his last movie. The Director says, "This movie is %96 real. All movie are about my childhood memories."

Maddin is inviting us on a strange journey. He is starting in the present time and going to the past, of course accompanied by Maddin's frantic editing and his abnormal images. Maddin is hovering different types during the movie. Sometimes the movie is turning into a horror movie or a science-fiction movie. Especially in the lighthouse where Maddin used an important factor of tension in the movie. Maddin used Expressionism while composes the lighthouse. In this way, the lighthouse seems like a monster. Creepy, uncanny and strange...

Little Maddin has a despot mother, a busy father and an adolescent sister. These things are causing tension for little Maddin. At this point, the director is benefiting from that tension and changing his movie type. The Director's expression is resembles fable book; simple and illustrated. This expression is adding comic aesthetic to the movie. Also, the director is using sexuality in specific Maddin style. Especially, he is emphasizing human libido. In this way, he is using sexuality with aggressiveness. Finally, Guy Maddin's last movie is hypnotic, stylistic and fascinating. Maddin doesn't frustrate his fans, he has created a great film once again.

BuRnOut_TR