Ulysse, souviens-toi!

The first thing I noticed watching Keyhole was that Maddin's cinematography seemed flatter than usual. I love the grainy, high-contrast black-and-white look of his other films, so it was disappointing to me that he moved to digital. The grain is gone and the shadows aren't nearly as deep--and if there's one thing a Maddin movie needs, it's deep shadows. Then again, I don't remember noticing anything "off" about The Forbidden Room, which according to Wikipedia was also shot digitally, so maybe the technology just needed to improve, or Maddin needed to get better acquainted with it.

Anyhow. The movie itself is decent. I would call it a lesser effort by Maddin. Thematically it shares much in common with Brand Upon the Brain! in terms of returning to an old domicile and being haunted by its memories. Brand is a superior film. Stylistically there's nothing really new here. I would have been interested to see Maddin attempt more action, in keeping with the gangster motif, but apart from a shootout at the beginning there isn't much. There's enough good stuff to make the film worth watching, though. Maddin fans ought to find it satisfying, if not innovative.

Stumbling out of the theater, my friend said in a small voice, "I think that was even stranger than Hourglass Sanatorium".

This one follows a cast of characters comprising a family whose given names are evocative of literary figures, ways of being, and pretty objects. Unsurprisingly, the character Ulysses is on a rambling quest to find something that may not exist at all -- an adumbrate vision of his wife Hyacinth. Oh, and all he has to do is make it from the first floor of his house to the third.

March (crawl, duck, run) behind them while they are sometimes nude, scraping at things, or shaking dice (there's a joke about masturbation in here somewhere), navigating their bilious house that has a ton of locked doors and a mess of floating dust particles, which -- I'm going out on a limb -- are probably metaphor for the thickness of whatever it is that came between them.

My favorite thematic preoccupation lies in Maddin's stirring portrayal of the fuzzy line between life and death, with figures floating in and out of the frame (and existence), incorporating themselves into deadly vanishing-vignettes that keep recurring, and, corporeal, positioning themselves in zones of the house and grounds that Maddin somehow conveys to the audience are "dead space".

While I'm definitely a Maddin fan, make no mistake about that, and I recognize his hat tips to Lynch and Von Trier and Harmony Korine, and I love any movie with Udo Kier in it, clearly this is a take-the-tax-grant and run flick.

Meanwhile, I'm going to strip naked and go to the antique mall and make some foggy black and white videos for YouTube and see which government wants to bankroll me for more! The 3 rating is strictly for how well this stacks up with other Maddin predecessors. The uninitiated, unless chemically altered, would probably strain to give it a zero.

IMDb here is insisting I go on at length in my review. I'm so glad there is governmental support for the arts, but sometimes it's just a siphon into a drain somewhere. For once, I am going to call this out. I will have to do so extensively, or I won't pass muster for my review length.

I did think some of the bric-a-brac props in the movie were cool. I like to shop antique flea markets myself, and some of the stuff was really prize. OK, I think I have filled up the text buffer to this website's satisfaction.

Canada 93m, B&W, Colour Director: Guy Maddin; Cast: Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini, Udo Kier, Kevin McDonald

Keyhole is a dark surreal film noir styled erotic ghost story loosely based on Homer's Odyssey about Ulysses Pick, a gangster whose mob pals shoot their way into his family home. Upon his arrival, Ulysses is inexplicably accompanied by a stuffed wolverine named "Crispy" and a drowned woman who apparently comes to life. His odyssey is a claustrophobic adventure through his labyrinth of a house which seems to defy the laws of time and space. Nearly incomprehensible, Keyhole offers a glimpse into a dead man's life through nightmarish visuals that are as interesting as they are perplexing (Klaus Ming August 2013).

Gangster and deadbeat dad, Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric), embarks on an unusual journey through his home, in a noir ghost story that draws on Homer's Odyssey.

Guy Maddin is an unusual man, whose styles are interesting and some would say unique. Keep in mind this is a man who, ten years prior, made "The Heart of the World" (2000) in the style of Russian constructivism. And it worked.

This time around, there is a cheesy, low budget feel with less-than-stellar acting, at least at the beginning. (The low budget look may be because Maddin shot Keyhole digitally rather than his usual method of shooting on 16mm or Super-8mm.) Things get better as they go, especially once the acting chops of Isabella Rossellini and Udo Kier are brought into the picture.

Ebert wrote, "Keyhole plays like a fever dream using the elements of film noir but restlessly rearranging them in an attempt to force sense out of them. You have the elements lined up against the wall, and in some mercurial way, they slip free and attack you from behind." Wow. Those are some words, Roger. Not sure exactly what you mean, but mysteriously such a review fits this film nicely.