Yesterday I watched my first ever Guy Maddin film, Brand Upon The Brain. For those who don't know, Maddin is a Canadian director who has made a career out of modern "silent" film. I put silent in parenthesis because, while we can't hear the characters and title cards are used for dialogue, Isabella Rosallini provides some wonderful narration (when the film premiered, it was shown live and other narrators, including Maddin, Crispin Glover and Eli Wallach). The film opens with a fictionalized Maddin returning home to the island-orphanage his parents ran when he was a child in order to repaint it so his dieing mother can see it one last time. As he walks through it, he begins to have memories of the strange events of the past. Guy and his sister were raised by their overbearing mother, who has a Lucille and Buster Bluth-like relationship with her son, and their mad-scientist father, who is performing some sort of experiment on the orphans. These experiments leas to holes being drilled into the heads of the children, something which, naturally, alarms some of the adoptive parents. The concerns of these parents lead to the intervention of teen detectives Wendy and Chance Hale - a brother and sister better known as the "Light bulb Kids." Guy falls for Wendy, who he pines for for the rest of his life, and his sister falls for Chance, who is actually Wendy in disguise. This, of course, leads to lesbian sex. From here the plot spirals into classic horror/sci-fi madness, with a few laughs along the way. This film is brilliantly shot and fantastically edited, and while it is a difficult film, and may occasionally be a bit too indulgent for its own good, it is an undeniable masterpiece, and a film that everyone should get to experience.
Rating (out of 4 stars) ****
Also seen recently: Before Night Falls (Schnabel '00) Although it doesn't reach quite the same level of brilliance as last year's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, this is an excellent biopic of gay Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, featuring a stunning performance from one of my favorite actors, Javier Bardem. Rating: ****
Autumn Sonata (Bergman '78) Not Bergman's greatest film, but it would be a masterpiece for almost any other director. Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullman are great in this study of a mother-daughter relationship gone wrong. Rating: ****
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