Guy Maddin's forlorn new film, "Brand Upon the Brain!" implements a strange cinematic enterprise to investigate the memories of forbidden love in a bitter but nostalgic island world. Showing through Thursday at Sundance Cinemas, "Brand" revels in flouting convention. But even for those who eschew everything Hollywood, this movie may be hard to stomach.
Shot in grainy black and white, the movie is structured like an old silent film, with the acts spliced with intertitles. The text is accompanied, however, by a narrator, Isabella Rossellini, who also sings on occasion. Combine this with an avant garde score (think dissonant cellos and jarring sound effects), and you have is Maddin's recipe for a film. Upon its release, "Brand Upon the Brain!" also had no recorded sound whatsoever, instead accompanied by live narration and a live orchestra; sadly, this multimedia experience is not the case with the Sundance version, which has been recorded for wider distribution.
As the 12-chapter narrative starts with an old Guy sailing back to the island of his youth to paint a lighthouse and visit his mother, this eerily depicted world slouches down to a bizarre mindscape of phantom visions and surrealism agnate to the visions of Tim Burton or David Lynch. From here, Guy seems to recount a fictionalized version of his childhood.
On a remote island of orphans, a young and eager to please Guy and best friend Neddie have little to do. They and Sis, Guy's older sibling, attempt small rebellions. But there is no escape from the occult spiritualisms of Savage Tom, the unpleasant gropes of Mother and her omniscient Lighthouse, and also the haphazard creations and experimentations of Father. Then one day two junior detectives appear, Chance and Wendy, hoping to solve the apparent mystery of why many of the orphans have odd-looking marks on the backs of their necks, and everything begins to unravel as Guy falls for Wendy but cannot find her, Sis steals off with Chance, Guy envies Sis, and Neddie falls into a coma; all of this while deaths, dinners, trysts, unmaskings, searches and memories conglomerate in a paratactic chaos that is as frenzied as it is stoically portrayed.
Nevertheless, many viewers did not see the film this way. In fact, maybe only 20 people saw the film at all, and four or five of them left after the first 10 minutes upon the realization that the whole movie would be presented in as a pseudo silent film. Others no doubt found the taboos, the strings of self-referential narrative and the slow layering of themes to be tiresome, estranging, too peculiar or simply unwarranted. As with much of contemporary art that aspires to that name, "Brand" may win all the awards, but will not likely achieve public success, even among those who take notice of it.
Yet, for the curious few, the movie dazzles. It is a theatrical experience all its own, one I found refreshing and engaging. The narration is reminiscent of a grandmother reading a story at bedtime, but is simultaneously laid over by the lurid lucid dream that follows. The oddities of Maddin's lunatic world are intriguing and believable. And, on a feminist side note, this film falls into the sparse category of movies that depict equal nudity between the sexes throughout. Lastly, the strangeness of the film as well as its taboo and shocking moments are somehow inviting, rarely seeming placed to simply alienate or push the envelope. It is this odd air that permeates the film, that of being allowed into the profane. Like chancing upon a mutilated cadaver, I felt out of place, horrified, yet wanting and needing to dissect.
4 stars out of 5
