Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin's ecstatically perverse jaunt into childhood's protracted gestation period is a hypnotic murk-fest filled to the brim with Sturm und Drang neo-psychedelia. Guy (Erik Steffen Maahs) returns to his childhood homestead, a lighthouse to restore it with two coats of paint for an ailing mother. Outsized delirium takes over: ghoulish rituals, surreptitious experiments, demented ghosts, social vampires and other phantasms of psychosis of an overextended memory is underpinned by distinctly Freudian impulses turned into artistic statements. The miscegenation of silent-era aesthetics, a mosaic of encoded visual cues and Maddin's continued fascination with high theatricality punctuated with trippy pop iconography delivers a Gothic fever dream that remains etched in your mind, whether you like it or not.
34 Reviews
Hollywood wouldn't dare and the independent forces of North American don't have the gall to try it anymore
hereontheoutside8 August 2007
'Brand Upon the Brain' is the perfect example of the kind of intriguing art-film still taking place in remote sects around the world. The kind of film that will go unnoticed by the majority of the film-making and film-going world. The film is heavily stylized and all the more engaging for it. The cinematography is washed out, hazy, even intentionally blurred at times, but consistently breath taking and beautiful. The starched white's bleed into the blacks establishing a nostalgic, dream-like quality. Overall the film is consistent in looks with Guy Maddin's 2003 silent film 'Cowards Bend the Knee,' it is myriadly more comprehensible than 'Cowards,' while by no means stepping into any mainstream consciousness. The film, for all practical purposes, is silent, but is lead, throughout, by an animated Isabella Rossellini, who often narrates the action, at other times is the voice of the characters or the voice of their subconscious. The film also heavily relies on naturalistic noises, artificially produced as sound effects to sporadic events taking place. This treatment of sound, so well executed that Maddin's crew deserves an Oscar for best sound editing, contributes to the overall sense of a hazy dream state. Which is precisely where we join the main character of the film, Guy Maddin, as the film opens. He is traveling by canoe back to the island that he grew up on. His family and a host of orphans inhabited a large lighthouse on an ambiguous island. His mother is dying and needs him to repaint the lighthouse, with two coats, so that she may visit it before she dies and remember it how it was. As he paints he realizes he is painting over the past and becomes lost in memories of abandonment, sexual promiscuity and confusion, an over- bearing mother, a treacherous and loving sister, immoral scientific experimentation, and the hi-jinx of a child brother/sister detective team, among other acts of sexual experimentation, near incestuous contact, voodoo curses and paganism. To say the least the film is sprawling, but it is pulled together nicely through cyclical imagery and themes (though this film is out there, the cyclical nature of themes in films about families is pretty standard), but it works nonetheless. The editing of the film is up to par for Maddin. Jarring, painfully emotional and crass. Another aspect of this film that will likely be overlooked by the advertising teams whom decide what films people are going to go and see. The film is short, only clocking in at around an hour and a half, but it is fast paced and the kind of film that you walk out of knowing, whether you felt it was brilliant or not, that it was worth how ever much you had to pay for it, a unique experience that Hollywood will never be able to offer an audience and that the assimilating forces of independent film don't offer audiences often enough.
Obscure! Perverse! Demented! Bizarre!!
Igenlode Wordsmith21 October 2007
This is an undeniably powerful film, for all its unorthodoxy; but the only word I could really find to describe it, again and again, was "bizarre". Bizarre to such a degree that, in the demented world shown here, even the most impossible and incredible occurrences can be accepted and taken for granted as part of the plot -- after the first five minutes or so, with the atmosphere of mad-scientist exploitation schlock firmly established, the audience were apparently taking the film on its own terms, over-the-top intertitles, tendentious voice-over, feverish cutting and all. The laughs that followed were not for the fraught nature of the story-telling, but in response to the deliberately scripted jokes inserted in the scenario: the hamster simulating a scientist, the butter stuck on the wall, the corpse in a harp.
The picture is shot, intentionally, at extremely low quality, more akin to closed-circuit TV than Super-8 home movies, let alone the silver/midnight shimmer of the silent screen. (This indistinct resolution is perhaps just as well, since the imagery includes some material rather more explicit than I'm comfortable with.) The acting, on the other hand, is fully up to the standard of the silent era; a contemptuous turn of the head, a self-pitying look, the dawning of a sudden idea, all explicit without a word... and the director clearly understands how to tell a story without resorting to pantomime or wordy scripts. The intertitles are consciously overwrought and populated by an insane density of exclamation marks, but never unnecessary or over-long.
In fact, I felt that the picture would very probably have been better if shot entirely as a silent with synchronised effects; especially at the beginning, the voice-over becomes actively intrusive, breaking into the flow and repeating or pre-empting what is being equally and much more elegantly expressed by the use of imagery, background sound and a few economically-written title cards. The impression given is that the director was afraid of losing his audience if he started off with a purely silent-style presentation, and added a superfluous narrating track on top -- unfortunately, the voice-over is not quite redundant and cannot be omitted, since it conveys certain important pieces of information that are not otherwise apparent. The combination is awkward.
This jarring effect, however, may of course be intentional. Another recurrent 'tic' is the way that many intertitle screens are displayed twice, in a sort of visual stammer: once in an almost subliminal flash and then a second time, long enough for slow readers to take them in. I assume this is some kind of reference to the frequently reiterated theme that all things happen twice, or can be made to repeat themselves... or else is simply deployed for its disorienting effect! The visual style of the film, with its distressed footage, weird camera angles, and spasmodic cuts back to significant motifs, reminded me of experimental film I'd seen from the 1960s. The difference is that this picture engages the audience, creates meaningful characters and actually tells a coherent story with emotional content, wild and lurid or not. For all its parody and sheer weirdness it manages to succeed on a cinematic level rather than as an abstract avant-garde statement. And it manages to get us to swallow some quite incredible scenarios with a straight face. The director clearly has a gift for world-building and a feel for visual narrative: this isn't really my type of film, but if it were not a contradiction in terms I'd love to see him take on a subject in a more 'straight' silent style, with less visual damage (though I suspect this may be an aid to disguising an ultra-low budget), less heavy-breathing potential, and above all less frenetic pop-video cutting. As another reviewer has commented, Maddin can compose beautiful shots... it's just that we never get to see any of them for longer than a few seconds.
But I assume that such an ambition is unrealistic, as I imagine that it is his trademark presentation that gets the audience to swallow silent film at all these days.
"Brand Upon the Brain!" is a considerable achievement, and has already made sufficient stir in the United States for me to have picked it out by title from a strand of London Film Festival programming I wouldn't normally dream of attending (and, looking round at familiar faces in the auditorium, I may not have been the only one!) It isn't entirely to my taste, which is why I've knocked a point off the rating I would otherwise have given it, but as an experience it was otherwise definitely worth the entrance price.
The picture is shot, intentionally, at extremely low quality, more akin to closed-circuit TV than Super-8 home movies, let alone the silver/midnight shimmer of the silent screen. (This indistinct resolution is perhaps just as well, since the imagery includes some material rather more explicit than I'm comfortable with.) The acting, on the other hand, is fully up to the standard of the silent era; a contemptuous turn of the head, a self-pitying look, the dawning of a sudden idea, all explicit without a word... and the director clearly understands how to tell a story without resorting to pantomime or wordy scripts. The intertitles are consciously overwrought and populated by an insane density of exclamation marks, but never unnecessary or over-long.
In fact, I felt that the picture would very probably have been better if shot entirely as a silent with synchronised effects; especially at the beginning, the voice-over becomes actively intrusive, breaking into the flow and repeating or pre-empting what is being equally and much more elegantly expressed by the use of imagery, background sound and a few economically-written title cards. The impression given is that the director was afraid of losing his audience if he started off with a purely silent-style presentation, and added a superfluous narrating track on top -- unfortunately, the voice-over is not quite redundant and cannot be omitted, since it conveys certain important pieces of information that are not otherwise apparent. The combination is awkward.
This jarring effect, however, may of course be intentional. Another recurrent 'tic' is the way that many intertitle screens are displayed twice, in a sort of visual stammer: once in an almost subliminal flash and then a second time, long enough for slow readers to take them in. I assume this is some kind of reference to the frequently reiterated theme that all things happen twice, or can be made to repeat themselves... or else is simply deployed for its disorienting effect! The visual style of the film, with its distressed footage, weird camera angles, and spasmodic cuts back to significant motifs, reminded me of experimental film I'd seen from the 1960s. The difference is that this picture engages the audience, creates meaningful characters and actually tells a coherent story with emotional content, wild and lurid or not. For all its parody and sheer weirdness it manages to succeed on a cinematic level rather than as an abstract avant-garde statement. And it manages to get us to swallow some quite incredible scenarios with a straight face. The director clearly has a gift for world-building and a feel for visual narrative: this isn't really my type of film, but if it were not a contradiction in terms I'd love to see him take on a subject in a more 'straight' silent style, with less visual damage (though I suspect this may be an aid to disguising an ultra-low budget), less heavy-breathing potential, and above all less frenetic pop-video cutting. As another reviewer has commented, Maddin can compose beautiful shots... it's just that we never get to see any of them for longer than a few seconds.
But I assume that such an ambition is unrealistic, as I imagine that it is his trademark presentation that gets the audience to swallow silent film at all these days.
"Brand Upon the Brain!" is a considerable achievement, and has already made sufficient stir in the United States for me to have picked it out by title from a strand of London Film Festival programming I wouldn't normally dream of attending (and, looking round at familiar faces in the auditorium, I may not have been the only one!) It isn't entirely to my taste, which is why I've knocked a point off the rating I would otherwise have given it, but as an experience it was otherwise definitely worth the entrance price.
Maddin's best since The Heart of the World
jfoltz16 October 2006
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.
Maddin should have dropped the narration for general release, but the film is still gangbusters
zetes7 October 2007
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.
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.
Branded Upon My Brain!
thao19 August 2008
Brand Upon the Brain! is Guy Maddin's 2nd film in an autobiographical trilogy, which started with "Cowards Bend the Knee" (2003) and ended with "My Winnipeg" (2007).
I have been a fan of Maddin for a long time and absolutely loved The Saddest Music in the World (2003) but Brand Upon the Brain! is by far the best film I have seen by him (I have yet to see My Winnipeg which also got rave reviews).
Maddin is one of the few directors who still makes silent films. This film is in fact only partly silent. There was a short time when silent films had soundtracks (music and sound effects), and Maddin does the same thing here. He also uses a narrator, but they where sometimes used at the time of the silent films (then live), especially in Japan.
The film is pure surrealism. It is autobiographical in the same way as Kafka was in his books. It has the humor of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet and the horror of David Lynch. It is, in a nutshell, insane and amazing. Strongly recommended to anyone interested in Avant-Garde cinema.
I have been a fan of Maddin for a long time and absolutely loved The Saddest Music in the World (2003) but Brand Upon the Brain! is by far the best film I have seen by him (I have yet to see My Winnipeg which also got rave reviews).
Maddin is one of the few directors who still makes silent films. This film is in fact only partly silent. There was a short time when silent films had soundtracks (music and sound effects), and Maddin does the same thing here. He also uses a narrator, but they where sometimes used at the time of the silent films (then live), especially in Japan.
The film is pure surrealism. It is autobiographical in the same way as Kafka was in his books. It has the humor of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet and the horror of David Lynch. It is, in a nutshell, insane and amazing. Strongly recommended to anyone interested in Avant-Garde cinema.
Both derivative and inventive
paulmartin-25 August 2007
With the exception of a few brief seemingly random shots, Brand Upon the Brain! is shot (or made to appear in post-production to be shot) in grainy black and white. The look is reminiscent of David Lynch's Eraserhead, a classic that may have been an influence, though the style is quite different. Maddin's film uses much more frenetic editing techniques, particularly frequent cutting to create an abrasive subliminal effect from which the title appears to be derived.
I use the term 'abrasive' and for some people that might be a negative, but I found it effective. The film uses captions and along with a neo-silent-era visual design, it has the effect of a coherent experimental film with a bizarre horror narrative. A man, Guy, returns to the island orphanage of his parents after a thirty year absence, on the request of his dying mother. It turns out the parents were subjecting the orphans to some peculiar activities from which Guy escaped.
I found the design, high-contrast lighting and editing techniques effective in conveying a bizarre nightmare-type of story, a horror film that is not entirely original in narrative nor design, yet original in its presentation. I liked the voice-over narration by Isabelle Rosellini.
There are some very attractive characterisations and depictions of inoffensive perversity. Definitely worth a look.
I use the term 'abrasive' and for some people that might be a negative, but I found it effective. The film uses captions and along with a neo-silent-era visual design, it has the effect of a coherent experimental film with a bizarre horror narrative. A man, Guy, returns to the island orphanage of his parents after a thirty year absence, on the request of his dying mother. It turns out the parents were subjecting the orphans to some peculiar activities from which Guy escaped.
I found the design, high-contrast lighting and editing techniques effective in conveying a bizarre nightmare-type of story, a horror film that is not entirely original in narrative nor design, yet original in its presentation. I liked the voice-over narration by Isabelle Rosellini.
There are some very attractive characterisations and depictions of inoffensive perversity. Definitely worth a look.
Dziga Vertov On Mushrooms
Seamus282916 July 2007
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?
moody and weird homage to silent films
PaulyC29 August 2008
Writer and Director Guy Maddin's interesting homage to silent films. It is about a man named Guy who returns to his childhood home on an abandoned island and asked to paint a lighthouse by his aging mother. As a child Guy was subject to his bizarre parents secret lives running the orphanage he grew up in. He unearths a strange world of disturbing science experiments and diabolical schemes. This movie gets weirder as it goes on. It was shot on 8mm film and that works well for the movie. It was written in about 5 weeks by director Maddin and filmed in much less time in Seattle. The actors are unknowns to the screen but I get the idea that they are all very theatrical trained stage actors. It is narrated beautifully by Isabella Rossellini and features a good musical score. It has a good look and feel and has a good pace but lacked something that I just can't put my finger on. Perhaps I expected to get in the head of Guy a little more. I had a better understanding of a lot of the other characters better then the leading man even with seeing the crazy life that he led. However, this film is worth a look for its uniqueness and style even if it's not the type of thing you may want to watch many times over.
Incredible Silent Film
whirrrrl16 May 2007
A gorgeous mix of distressed super-8mm visuals, and with the supreme live accompaniment, superbly crisp sound effects which evoke everything from summers past to cracking vertebrae...I was fortunate enough to see Mme. Isabelle Rosallini perform her interdiction with gusto, particularly Mum's screams. The score was brilliant, disturbing, sultry and ultimately, perfectly rendered.
Occasionally, it was actually good to enjoy the 'silence' of the film as well, during breaks in the film.
What will Maddin come up with next? If I can make a suggestion, I think Savage Tom deserves a feature-length work of his own: 'Savage Tom's Cabin.'
Occasionally, it was actually good to enjoy the 'silence' of the film as well, during breaks in the film.
What will Maddin come up with next? If I can make a suggestion, I think Savage Tom deserves a feature-length work of his own: 'Savage Tom's Cabin.'
Jalapeño Water
tedg9 March 2011
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.
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.
fascinating but over-hyped
lpk_old10 May 2007
Saw this just now with Eli Wallach narrating, and he and the foley crew were definitely the best and most interesting part, dressed in lab outfits with a full kit of radio show props (not Wallach, the foley crew). Wallach actually chuckled during one scene near the end, but to be honest the movie was not that funny, nor very compelling. In fact, it was exhausting, and you probably won't be thinking about it much after the last cymbal crash. I'm only writing about it to try to shake off the numbness, which sustained applause at the end for Maddin and Co. did nothing to stir.
Interesting live show, but by the standards of theater it is just OK. By the standards of film this is a diverting curiosity but not essential. if you are thinking about watching this with a pre- recorded soundtrack I'd watch another of Maddin's movies instead, this one is a real disappointment.
Interesting live show, but by the standards of theater it is just OK. By the standards of film this is a diverting curiosity but not essential. if you are thinking about watching this with a pre- recorded soundtrack I'd watch another of Maddin's movies instead, this one is a real disappointment.
Good from an Academic Perspective
DirtyStarling1 February 2009
This is one of those films that's more interesting to watch from an academic perspective than from an entertainment perspective. I do my ratings based on how much I enjoyed or was entertained by the movie, so I'm giving it a 4. If I were to rate it as an academic film, though, it would get a 10.
It is shot in a very interesting manner, like a pseudo-silent film with elements of sound effect and reality. It's meant to convey disjointed memory and fragmentation of the mind, and it is interesting in these respects.
However, the film has a lot of disgusting elements to it that I didn't find all that entertaining. They're mainly just disturbing. It has some very interesting imagery too, and some interesting concepts, but some of the character relationships (especially between the mother and son) are pretty disturbing.
In all, this film will either appeal to you or it won't. For me, it was interesting from an academic perspective, but it wasn't a good watch, and I'll probably not go back to it a second time.
4/10 if you're looking for entertainment. 10/10 from an academic standpoint.
It is shot in a very interesting manner, like a pseudo-silent film with elements of sound effect and reality. It's meant to convey disjointed memory and fragmentation of the mind, and it is interesting in these respects.
However, the film has a lot of disgusting elements to it that I didn't find all that entertaining. They're mainly just disturbing. It has some very interesting imagery too, and some interesting concepts, but some of the character relationships (especially between the mother and son) are pretty disturbing.
In all, this film will either appeal to you or it won't. For me, it was interesting from an academic perspective, but it wasn't a good watch, and I'll probably not go back to it a second time.
4/10 if you're looking for entertainment. 10/10 from an academic standpoint.
a towering monument of weird
jonathan-5777 June 2007
For the second and probably last time in Toronto, Maddin's newest, silent narrative is given the full treatment - with narrator, adult male soprano, orchestra and foley artists - at the Elgin, and let me tell you, this is a far, far better use for that space than "The Who's Tommy" or "Steppin' Out", the only other times I've ventured in. The tale of Guy's lighthouse-keeper headmistress vampire mother and her daughter's seduction by a crossdressing children's-book heroine is even more washed-out and cut to ribbons than the Maddin norm - he's almost filling the silence with images, like Eisenstein, so that it can work on its own when the frills are stripped away. I guess some day I'll find out whether it achieves that goal, but for this one the frills are what made it. I sat there the whole time thinking, THIS is what professionalism is for - a tenuous common language which enables an impossible range of individual weirdos to join forces and do their thing on a scale of grand spectacle. At times I drifted away from the glorious goings-on on screen, just to watch the wonderful Louis Negin's mousey mincing expostulations, or Andy Malcolm twisting celery, or that soprano sitting in his easy chair thinking about who knows what, waiting for his 90 seconds of true mind-boggling glory. One of the most exciting experiences I've ever had watching a movie.
Again, everything will happen again
Polaris_DiB8 September 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I have to admit, as much as I've loved Guy Maddin's work that I've seen up to now, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so enjoyable from him as this. His work can always be considered, in a sense, Freudian (but beyond the obvious it shows he has a sense of humor about it), but here he mixes in some Jung and Pavlov and creates a mish-mash of androgyny and feverish displacement along with his usual cornucopia of matriphobia, isolation, and anxiety. It also has such immortal lines as "What is a suicide attempt without a wedding?" and "To hide his death from his mother, he replaced the father's body with a hamster and a metronome."
Guy Maddin is certainly an idiosyncratic director, there's no arguing that. What I like is that he is much more than a one-trick pony. There are moments of hysteria in here you cannot help but get sucked into, and somehow even the most outrageous of content makes perfect sense in the worlds and realities he creates. At times you want to draw comparisons between this film and Psycho, Frankenstein, etc., but in the end it's only its own thing, and even as a Maddin film isn't QUITE like his other movies. The voice over is a lot of fun, especially later in the movie when it's used more sparsely, and above all the musical aside just hits the nail on the head--one of those uncanny moments when you didn't even realize the movie was missing something until it happened, and suddenly everything just seems right in the world.
Definitely a movie, if any, to get into this director if you haven't, and if you have you'll certainly not be disappointed.
--PolarisDiB
Guy Maddin is certainly an idiosyncratic director, there's no arguing that. What I like is that he is much more than a one-trick pony. There are moments of hysteria in here you cannot help but get sucked into, and somehow even the most outrageous of content makes perfect sense in the worlds and realities he creates. At times you want to draw comparisons between this film and Psycho, Frankenstein, etc., but in the end it's only its own thing, and even as a Maddin film isn't QUITE like his other movies. The voice over is a lot of fun, especially later in the movie when it's used more sparsely, and above all the musical aside just hits the nail on the head--one of those uncanny moments when you didn't even realize the movie was missing something until it happened, and suddenly everything just seems right in the world.
Definitely a movie, if any, to get into this director if you haven't, and if you have you'll certainly not be disappointed.
--PolarisDiB
Conventional does not come to mind
moviemanMA18 June 2009
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.
Repetition overpowering sincerity
Flak_Magnet10 September 2009
This newer Guy Maddin project tries admirably to be progressive and inventive, but ultimately falls into the oldest movie pitfall of all -- that of dullness. Viewers hoping to revisit the brilliance Maddin showed in "The Saddest Music in the World" will probably be disappointed, as the story and characters in "Brand Upon the Brain" are hopelessly lifeless and under-developed. Essentially a very hyperkinetic silent film, "Brand Upon the Brain" tells a semi-autobiographical tale about a younger Guy Maddin, who, after hearing word of his mother's ill health, revisits his families' private Canadian island to paint its special lighthouse, as well as bury the ghosts of childhood lost. This is primarily a story about family, forgiveness, and burying the hatchets of past indiscetions. The story seems to say, basically, that you can't pick your family, and its important to love them despite problems and indifferences. Its a pretty noble and well intentioned film, really, but also a curiously lifeless one. The movie's exaggerated Expressionism and frenetic style quickly become repetitious, and it is difficult to feel attached to any of the characters, as each is on screen for only seconds at a time. The film has its moments, I suppose, but they are drowned out listlessly in the tide of repetition and general tedium. This one was a disappointment. (PS: This film toured major cities as a live performance, with guest narrators and symphony accompanyment. Included on the DVD are about seven of these taped narrations, essentially giving the film eight possible audio tracks). I admire what Maddin was trying to do here, but I can't argue it worked. ---|--- Reviews by Flak Magnet
Mesmerizing Myth-mash
ThurstonHunger17 April 2010
Nice to have to films recently that really connected with me.
This one seems to have found a bypass straight to my subconscious in parts. Perhaps due to the flickering quality, of the retro silent shooting? The black and white hip and hypnagogic approach. I really did find myself on that threshold of awareness and dream.
At the outset, I thought Maddin was making a film through found footage, so good was the choppiness of the scenes and the sea. It must have been amazing to see this with a live narrator and better yet a team of foley fiends. But seeing it alone, that also helped with the films resonance.
The story as such is a strange slurry, as others have denoted. Twisted personal archetypes (the male protagonist sharing the filmmaker's name and likely a largesse of his angst). After seeing this, I'm hard-pressed on how to put it all together. It's like a 3D puzzle that I now find flattened in my hands.
And I'm not film student, just a fan, but I suspect this is rife with opportunity for many a thesis. Nosferatu shadows. Lighthouse introspection. Sexual innuendo and overdoses. Owning the video is certainly an option, with its multiple narrated versions (including Crispin Glover and Laurie Anderson), and its surfeit of cinematic sensation. The soundtrack as jagged as the isolated island's coastline, competes well with the aforementioned foley fun.
Fans of outre film, like the Ann Arbor Film Fest can look inward in many ways with this.
I find myself drifting closer to the Maddin crowd.
9/10
This one seems to have found a bypass straight to my subconscious in parts. Perhaps due to the flickering quality, of the retro silent shooting? The black and white hip and hypnagogic approach. I really did find myself on that threshold of awareness and dream.
At the outset, I thought Maddin was making a film through found footage, so good was the choppiness of the scenes and the sea. It must have been amazing to see this with a live narrator and better yet a team of foley fiends. But seeing it alone, that also helped with the films resonance.
The story as such is a strange slurry, as others have denoted. Twisted personal archetypes (the male protagonist sharing the filmmaker's name and likely a largesse of his angst). After seeing this, I'm hard-pressed on how to put it all together. It's like a 3D puzzle that I now find flattened in my hands.
And I'm not film student, just a fan, but I suspect this is rife with opportunity for many a thesis. Nosferatu shadows. Lighthouse introspection. Sexual innuendo and overdoses. Owning the video is certainly an option, with its multiple narrated versions (including Crispin Glover and Laurie Anderson), and its surfeit of cinematic sensation. The soundtrack as jagged as the isolated island's coastline, competes well with the aforementioned foley fun.
Fans of outre film, like the Ann Arbor Film Fest can look inward in many ways with this.
I find myself drifting closer to the Maddin crowd.
9/10
Eisenstein´s Indie Rom-Com. On Drugs.
axapvov24 January 2018
Charming silent film with rampant editing, dizzy imagery, simultaneous narrator and text frames... basically everything imaginable to test the audience´s endurance to a headache. At times there are about five images in one second, all of them recorded with a shaky camera going in and out of focus. Text frames pop up for a mili second before appearing again for someone to actually read them. The film does an aggresive effort to be as obtuse as it possibly can. It has the appearance of an ancient found-footage film but a severely damaged one, beyond restoration. Text frames add comedy and poetry while the narrator tells the story, but they often do so at the same time, making it an implacable experience.
It is charming, though, actors do justice to silent films gestures and overall mystery. At its best, the expressionistic montage does evoke rich emotions and the plot makes Wes Anderson seem unimaginative. It is bold film-making, very creative art-house indeed, but my first experience with Guy Maddin´s work was too demanding and didn´t quite reward my commitment.
It is charming, though, actors do justice to silent films gestures and overall mystery. At its best, the expressionistic montage does evoke rich emotions and the plot makes Wes Anderson seem unimaginative. It is bold film-making, very creative art-house indeed, but my first experience with Guy Maddin´s work was too demanding and didn´t quite reward my commitment.
Operatic Story, Campy Visuals, Overall effect?
brucetwo-225 February 2015
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
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
"what's a suicide attempt without a wedding?"
framptonhollis4 December 2017
Weird...even for a Guy Maddin movie.
Brilliant...even for a Guy Maddin movie.
A quote from Richard Linklater's ingenious philosophical film "Waking Life" seems to sum up Guy Maddin's "Brand Upon the Brain!" perfectly: "...and on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion." That is what this film is...in short. It is a salsa dance with Maddin's confusion, it is a romantic evening of self...or, more accurately, is a snippet from this so called "romantic evening" or, even more accurately, it is a collection of many snippets from this "evening." "Brand Upon the Brain!" is a dreamscape...it is a stream of consciousness which has been infiltrated with demented undrinkable water...undrinkable water that Maddin sips with a smile on his face for 95 minutes.
"Brand Upon the Brain!" is an exploration of childhood, human sexuality, and the complicated relationship a boy has with his mother...it's also about love triangles, lesbians, cross dressers, cannibals, orphans, childhood, nostalgia, regret, guilt, love, loss, death, reanimation, zombies...it's science fiction...it's autobiography...it's a mess...it's perfectly put together...the editing is jerky and jiggedy...the style is quick...fast cuts...jump cuts!...words...screen of text!...a line of dialogue...a single exclamation...like "Don't" or "Jump!" or "Something!" like that...there's German Expressionist stuff, obvious tributes to everything from "Nosferatu" to Eisenstein and "Vampyr" to "Eraserhead"...but it's all original. The film is framed with the tale of a man (named after the film's maker, Guy Maddin) who is attempting to erase his traumatic past...a past filled with deep personal tragedy, relatable self discovery, pitch black absurdist comedy, Gothic horror, flights of fantasy, boyish lust, and this and that and this and that...much of his past is pure fiction...most of it stems, however, from some great hidden truth...some vague memories and images scattered around that can only be recreated with a loony, goofy, creepy tragedy like this one...
Brilliant...even for a Guy Maddin movie.
A quote from Richard Linklater's ingenious philosophical film "Waking Life" seems to sum up Guy Maddin's "Brand Upon the Brain!" perfectly: "...and on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion." That is what this film is...in short. It is a salsa dance with Maddin's confusion, it is a romantic evening of self...or, more accurately, is a snippet from this so called "romantic evening" or, even more accurately, it is a collection of many snippets from this "evening." "Brand Upon the Brain!" is a dreamscape...it is a stream of consciousness which has been infiltrated with demented undrinkable water...undrinkable water that Maddin sips with a smile on his face for 95 minutes.
"Brand Upon the Brain!" is an exploration of childhood, human sexuality, and the complicated relationship a boy has with his mother...it's also about love triangles, lesbians, cross dressers, cannibals, orphans, childhood, nostalgia, regret, guilt, love, loss, death, reanimation, zombies...it's science fiction...it's autobiography...it's a mess...it's perfectly put together...the editing is jerky and jiggedy...the style is quick...fast cuts...jump cuts!...words...screen of text!...a line of dialogue...a single exclamation...like "Don't" or "Jump!" or "Something!" like that...there's German Expressionist stuff, obvious tributes to everything from "Nosferatu" to Eisenstein and "Vampyr" to "Eraserhead"...but it's all original. The film is framed with the tale of a man (named after the film's maker, Guy Maddin) who is attempting to erase his traumatic past...a past filled with deep personal tragedy, relatable self discovery, pitch black absurdist comedy, Gothic horror, flights of fantasy, boyish lust, and this and that and this and that...much of his past is pure fiction...most of it stems, however, from some great hidden truth...some vague memories and images scattered around that can only be recreated with a loony, goofy, creepy tragedy like this one...
An explosion of style
ametaphysicalshark17 August 2008
I had the unique opportunity to see one of the few theatrical screenings of this film featuring live musical accompaniment, a foley crew, a live narrator (whose narration was, if I recall correctly, quite different to Rosselini's narration in the TV version used here in Canada), and a male soprano. It was a tremendous experience, but even then I thought it had the feel of a latter-day Aerosmith concert- a professional show masking a lack of substance and inventiveness in the performance and execution of the songs. In short, it felt perfunctory and almost like a cover-up.
"Brand Upon the Brain!" is certainly not one of Maddin's better films. It works fantastically in style and features an arresting, low-budget visual sensibility, but is quite severely lacking in the sort of substance one might expect from a Maddin film. Sure, there are themes being explored here, but they've already been covered better and in more detail in his other work. The narrative itself is outrageous, bizarre, and quite entertaining. I can forgive the film's shortcomings given how fast Maddin wrote this script (five weeks; the movie was shot in one fifth that time), but I don't really think there was that much potential in the idea of the film to begin with.
The film's visuals are all there is that's worth talking about here. The editing is brilliantly jarring and wonderfully enhances the film's emotional moments, the cinematography is breathtakingly beautiful given its purpose in the film, and it is very fast-paced. As far as the rest of the film goes, I'll just say this: Maddin is frequently accused of treating his subject matter too lightly although his films are never overtly comedic. "Brand Upon the Brain!" is intentionally funny as are most of his other films, but there is a genuine lack of any clever humor here, as well as a complete lack of any real substance or worth. It works tremendously in style, and it's easy to watch, but there's just nothing more to it.
7/10
"Brand Upon the Brain!" is certainly not one of Maddin's better films. It works fantastically in style and features an arresting, low-budget visual sensibility, but is quite severely lacking in the sort of substance one might expect from a Maddin film. Sure, there are themes being explored here, but they've already been covered better and in more detail in his other work. The narrative itself is outrageous, bizarre, and quite entertaining. I can forgive the film's shortcomings given how fast Maddin wrote this script (five weeks; the movie was shot in one fifth that time), but I don't really think there was that much potential in the idea of the film to begin with.
The film's visuals are all there is that's worth talking about here. The editing is brilliantly jarring and wonderfully enhances the film's emotional moments, the cinematography is breathtakingly beautiful given its purpose in the film, and it is very fast-paced. As far as the rest of the film goes, I'll just say this: Maddin is frequently accused of treating his subject matter too lightly although his films are never overtly comedic. "Brand Upon the Brain!" is intentionally funny as are most of his other films, but there is a genuine lack of any clever humor here, as well as a complete lack of any real substance or worth. It works tremendously in style, and it's easy to watch, but there's just nothing more to it.
7/10
I stopped the DVD after an hour when it became repetitive
frankcwalsh28 June 2011
I stopped the DVD after an hour when it became repetitive. Before that, it was an interesting but weird movie. It's filmed as a silent movie with the characters dressed in the robes and hair styles of the early 1900's. Nobody talks but you do have a narrator who told you what is happening and words written in white on a black background that let you know other things. It's made in black and white with grainy images and I actually had to check the date of he movie o make sure it wasn't 70 years old. It was interesting but slow for about 40 minutes, until the story stopped moving. I debated whether to stop for about another 15 minutes then fast forward for another five then finally stopped it. I don't mind movies made today in black and white(I'm a big fan of film noir), and I like movies that are different. What I don't tolerate are movies that are boring and waste my time.
Yikes
angel_s_garden27 January 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I should have never watched this movie. The style of filming may be considered artsy to some, but it is considered migraine-inducing to me. I think it may have had an interesting plot, but since I couldn't watch it for long stretches at a time I missed a lot. The flickering pictures and stop motion filming branded my brain. I stopped watching mid way through and won't be back for a second try. I suppose if I were home alone in my own lighthouse some dark and stormy evening, this might be just the ticket... PS Not sure if the lighthouse/ film style thing can be considered a spoiler, but I don't want to be blacklisted on my first review ;)
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