Film
by W.M. Akers
BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!
NR, 95 min.
Opens Friday! At the Belcourt!
There’s nothing quite like Brand Upon the Brain!, but that shouldn’t recommend the film on its own. Made to resemble a poorly preserved (or perhaps poorly recalled) 80-year-old melodrama, Guy Maddin’s black-and-white “Remembrance in 12 Parts” lurches forth, jerky and often out of focus, skipping backward and forward as though the projectionist had mixed up the reels. A pastiche and an homage to the forceful storytelling of early cinema, the lurid story is told without spoken dialogue, through narration, title cards and, of course, the emphatic expressions on his actors’ faces.
Maddining! All action! No talk!
Photo: Adam L. Weintraub
Juxtaposed with Isabella Rossellini’s often comically direct narration and Maddin’s exclamation-ridden title cards—a favorite shrieks, “Secrets! Secrets! Secrets!”—is the mystery recalled by “house painter Guy Maddin” when he returns to give a fresh coat of paint to the lighthouse/orphanage his parents ran when he was a child. His mother, a half-mad crone, kept close watch on young Guy and his sister from her perch atop the lighthouse. As befits someone all-seeing, Mother narrates, and when Guy returns she tells him, “Paint, Guy, paint!” as though expecting his whitewash to cover up the terrible “Secrets!” of his past. But Guy’s work, rather than helping him forget, forces the events of his childhood back into his mind. Terrible Experiments! First Love with Wendy, world-famous harp player and identical-twin teen detective! Savage Tom!
Maddin’s flawless affectation of ancient film techniques is a large part of what makes Brand Upon the Brain! such fun. The entire screen is often dark save an iris in the center, and the tone of the black and white occasionally switches to blue or green. The cutting is frantic, with many near-subliminal images flashing for less than a second. Commenting not just on film history but also the construction of personal histories, Maddin examines the reflexive nature of storytelling, which comes naturally to us in unsubtle forms. But for all the poignancy of his allusions to film and literature, Brand’s fevered Gothic exaggeration, which matches the mania of his inspirations, is witty and playful instead of ponderous.
Shown originally with a live orchestra, Brand Upon the Brain! extends Canadian filmmaker Maddin’s one-man niche as the world’s leading excavator and re-animator of arcane genres—the mountain film (1992’s Careful), silent Soviet sci-fi (2000’s “The Heart of the World”). Besides Maddin’s other work, such as 2003’s The Saddest Music in the World, there’s nothing quite like it—and on second thought, perhaps that’s exactly what should recommend it. How often do you see a movie so gravely unflinching it’ll crack you up? Part of what makes Brand work is that it never blinks. The secrets of Guy’s past are utterly outrageous, unsuitable for print, but Maddin presents them as the most serious revelations of all time. And for Guy Maddin, house painter, they are.
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