If Guy Maddin didn’t exist, it would be necessary for some crazed critic to invent him – and I’d happily volunteer for the job.
For years, this Canadian filmmaker has been turning out arty movies steeped in silent-film history, surreal humor and Victorian horror. Manic mash-ups of amateur filmmaking and art-school ideas, they deliriously mix Super 8 photography and professional actors, gender studies and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.”
Each has been its own event. “Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary,” a bloodsucking ballet, was one. So was “The Heart of the World,” a mad combination of Jules Verne and Sergei Eisenstein. And “The Saddest Music in the World,” which cast Isabella Rossellini as a brewery heiress with a pair of glass legs.
Maddin’s latest, “Brand Upon the Brain!” a silent movie, is his most ambitious yet. Subtitled “A Remembrance in 12 Chapters,” it’s a multimedia piece being given a limited release.
The plot – and Maddin is one of those rare avant-gardists who actually adores plot – is thick with 19th-century melodrama, set in a lonely orphanage on a remote island. There, the husband works late in his laboratory, perfecting some mysterious serum; the wife haunts the isle’s lighthouse, using its searchlight to spy on everyone. Orphans wander the grounds like zombies.
And then a dashing female detective arrives, eager to uncover everyone’s secrets.
What endears Maddin to the academics are his dreamy metaphors and gender politics. As in many of his films, “Brand Upon the Brain!” is populated by repressive authorities and sexual adventurers.
What makes Maddin a treat for film buffs, though, is his nostalgic style. Maddin speaks in the clear-cut language of D.W. Griffith – irised-in close-ups, title cards, high-contrast black-and-white photography.
Even as it uses silent-film tricks and Grand Guignol plot twists, though, “Brand Upon the Brain!” isn’t just campy entertainment. Nor is it for everyone. Its plot is deliberately preposterous, and Maddin’s obsessions are as transgressive as Kenneth Anger’s or Andy Warhol’s; there are touches of murder and black magic, and a bit of full-frontal nudity.
The result is beautiful, disturbing and indisputably unique. Because as you watch Guy Maddin’s movies, two things strike you: You can’t imagine him working in any other way, and you can’t imagine anyone else who could possibly work like him.
Which is a good a definition of a real artist.
`Brand Upon the Brain!’
***
Mercury News
Rated: Unrated, contains full-frontal nudity, sexual situations and violence.
Cast: Sullivan Brown, Maya Lawson.
Director: Guy Maddin
Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes
