Buried near the end of my last post, a lengthy preview of the S.F. International Film Festival, was a heads-up about the special presentation of Guy Maddin’s ambitious extravaganza, Brand Upon the Brain!. Although I was enthusiastic in my recommendation, I wasn’t off-my-meds hysterical, jumping up and down, shrieking in capital letters. I apologize. Because those who were at the Castro this past Monday night (May 7) had the abundant pleasure of experiencing the movie highlight of the year.
Now that I’ve ruined your morning, I hasten to add that you have other chances, if you can spring for the airfare to New York, Chicago or L.A., Or you can wait for Brand Upon the Brain! to open June 15 in San Francisco, albeit with a pre-recorded soundtrack and without the abundance of live performers who graced the Castro stage and orchestra pit.
Maddin, who lives and works in Winnipeg, has a fervid and singular imagination that has thrilled, amused and confounded audiences by way of eight features and roughly 20 short films. His work is best described as Canadian Gothic, as oxymoronic as that sounds, for his willfully melodramatic plots typically incorporate a tormented childhood, repressed sexuality, wintry isolation, sibling jealousy and a bizarre revenge. It’s the lonely, mystified outsider experience, basically, brightened with an ironic and self-deprecating sense of humor.
The wonderfully wacky Brand Upon the Brain!, subtitled A Remembrance in 12 Chapters, centers on a boy named Guy (make whatever autobiographical interpretations you will) who lives in a lighthouse with his family. Mother runs an orphanage in the basement and keeps a close eye on Guy and Sis, while Father’s always hiding out in his lab tinkering with some invention. The story spirals outward to encompass harp-playing twin detectives, nectar siphoned from the orphans’ brains (!), a gender masquerade and “Kissing Gloves” (and “Undressing Gloves”).
The story, wild as it is, is inseparable from Maddin’s style. Brand Upon the Brain! is shot in black-and-white without sound, mimicking the look and feel of old silent movies. Maddin employs iris shots, fadeouts, intertitles, strobe-like flashes and various other techniques that haven’t been glimpsed since the days of speak-easies. But his aesthetic is so alive — the editing and the pace are 21st Century, make no mistake — that Maddin can’t be accused of trying to resurrect some lost era. He doesn’t want to live in the past; he simply loves to dream in herky-jerky black-and-white.
