Review :: Brand Upon the Brain!

Navigating the fragility of memory and the potentially deadly traps of reminiscence, saturated with regrets and guilt, twisting together disparate film elements and genres with nearly iconoclastic zeal, haunted and haunting, irreverent, horrific, inspired, wildly funny and more than a little disturbing -- Canadian art house auteur Guy Maddin's Brand Upon the Brain! (2006) is a seemingly semi-autobiographical meditation upon many things, chiefly familial relationship, love, childhood, and the inescapable and suffocating grip of the past. In the film, Guy Maddin (not played by Guy Maddin) returns to desolate little island in order to repaint the lighthouse, his childhood home and site of the orphanage that his tyrannical mother and mad scientist father had run. Though the lighthouse is falling apart, the good and dutiful son Guy will paint it, twice, in what very quickly becomes an obvious attempt to whitewash the trauma of his childhood. However, as William Faulkner wrote, "The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past," and soon, despite his best efforts, Guy's past launches itself at both him and the screen in a dreamy and nightmarish whirl of phantasmagoria and Freudian anxiety.

Brand Upon the Brain! is ostensibly a silent film, complete with title cards and narration. It is black and white, frantically shot on rough and grainy super 8, and hypnotically edited. The film was originally designed to be a "cinematic experience," more a piece of performance art than a conventional theatrical film. It debuted at the Toronto Film Festival with live musical accompaniment and several live foley artists; in the festival circuit it has been narrated live by Maddin himself, Eli Wallach, Isabella Rossellini and Crispen Glover, amongst others. For this fantastical and metaphorical trip down memory lane, Maddin harvests nearly every genre imaginable, from melodrama to horror, fantasy to science-fiction, erotic thriller and teen detective story. Vampires, secret teen lesbians, Lord of the Flies-style savages and the re-animated dead become the principal characters on the stage of Guy's memory. And yet, as Maddin continually mashes up genres and themes and as he overlaps motifs and elements, a surprisingly coherent film emerges. The film never feels forced or disjointed; it all makes a type of emotional and resonant sense. In this sense, Maddin is very much a Canadian counterpart to David Lynch; however, unlike the often off-puttingly esoteric nature of the Lynch's narratives, even a casual film goer, were he able to withstand the unabashed art house sensibility of the film's style and storytelling, would easily be able to understand the broad sweeps of Brand Upon the Brain! Its touchstones and themes -- such as first love, maternal attachment, the ambivalence and ambiguity of adolescence -- are broad and universal enough that, though the film appears to be deeply personal it is immediately identifiable.

While it's clear that Brand Upon the Brain! is firmly couched within a metaphoric sensibility, it's difficult and probably deliberately impossible to firmly identify where biography breaks off and where fantastic and perhaps slightly indulgent metaphor takes over. Both metaphor and myth are, I think, a very appropriate vehicle for self-revelation and Maddin deftly uses both here. However, if I were to lodge one protest against the film it would be that it almost feels dishonest. By using his own name as the name of his protagonist, Maddin establishes an autobiographical tone that the film's more outrageous elements almost immediately challenge and call into question and you begin to suspect that autobiography is not on Maddin's agenda after all. The relationship between Guy and his mother, for instance, seems designed to inflame, and perhaps poke fun at, Freudian anxieties rather then legitimately explore deep-seated emotional or psychological issues. In fact, throughout most of the film I think it is more likely that Maddin has his tongue in his cheek rather than his head on the couch. It is perhaps best to think of the film not as an exploration of Maddin's past (of course, for all I know about Maddin's childhood, it may well be just that) but rather an exploration of the past in general, it's impact and import, and its highly subjective nature. Guy becomes not so much a director's surrogate as an audience's and that, when executed as expertly as here, is a thrilling experience of which to be a part.

Every time I think that the limits of film have been bounded and set, I find someone like Maddin who brazenly over-steps the bounds and pushes the medium in directions I hadn't expected. Brand Upon the Brain! isn't a perfect film and it certainly isn't for everyone. In fact, chances are that unless you count yourself amongst the pretentious cinematic elite you probably haven't even heard of the film. It is, however, an exuberant, thrilling and rather marvelous little film full of whimsy, menace, sentimentality and sudden and bright splashes of affection. Brand Upon the Brain! is the first Guy Maddin film that I've seen -- an embarrassing admission for a Canadian critic, I know. After seeing it, however, I can say that I am indeed very eager to catch up on some of his other films such as The Saddest Music in the World and My Winnipeg. Guy Maddin's vision in Brand Upon the Brain! is compelling and unique and worth the time of anyone who loves film.

Review :: Eastern Promises

(It's almost impossible to talk about this film intelligently or at any length without mentioning at least some essential plot-points. While I've tried to keep it spoiler free, it does touch upon at least one major plot element but you've probably already heard about it if you've heard anything at all about the film. Anyway, just thought I'd warn you.)

Transformation of the human body and mind has always been the grand theme of the David Cronenberg oeuvre. In films like Videodrome or The Fly and in most of his early genre films (the so-called "venereal" horror films), Cronenberg used the shocking metaphors that the genre offered him to explore his own ideas about the relationship of the body and the mind, a dichotomy that Cronenberg ultimately rejects. However, in his more mature films like Dead Ringers, Spider and A History of Violence, Cronenberg put aside the effective though ultimately clumsy metaphors of the horror genre and began to shift his focus from mutation to psychology. His sensibilities and obsessions have remained the same, though: the creation or alteration of human identity. With Eastern Promises, his latest foray into the human mind, Cronenberg continues to obsess over the question of identity and creates another minor masterpiece of philosophy and violence, two elements that seem to fit together oddly and beautifully in his films.

When a young Russian prostitute dies while giving birth in a London hospital, Anna (Naomi Watts) attempts to use the girl's diary to identify her in order to deliver the newborn child to the girl's relatives. She discovers that the girl worked for the vory v zakone, a particularly notorious Russian crime organization, and that both the diary and the baby pose a threat to the organization's boss Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl). Meanwhile, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen, delivering another nearly perfect performance) is rising through the vory ranks and earning the right to full inclusion in the crime syndicate. The intersection of Anna and Nikolai forces certain confrontations and transformations that will change and threaten everyone involved.

In any film, perception is identity; that is, a character is who he is perceived to be. As in A History of Violence, perception and identity in Eastern Promises is revealed and transformed both through the suffering and inflicting of violence. This tension of vulnerability and violence forms the film's essential matrix of identity and the its centerpiece - the scene you've heard about if you've heard anything about the film - is a savage and perhaps perfect image of that tension: in the sweaty and steaming isolation of a bathhouse, Nikolai is savagely attacked by rival mobsters and must fight for his life using the most brutal and immediate means possible - all while being completely naked. It is perhaps one of the most audacious and exhilarating scenes in movie history for a long while, as both Cronenberg and Mortensen lay it all on the line. But the scene is far from exploitive or shocking for shock's sake; it is a near-perfect rendering of the Cronenberg sensibility and an absolute marvel to behold. Besides being its strongest moment, the scene is the film's pivot. The encounter forces Nikolai to reevaluate his position and, ultimately, forces him to transform, or perhaps simply to reveal to us, who he really is. This distinction of transformation and revelation is ultimately artificial, though, since even if Nikolai himself has known who he was, we the audience have not. Identity is perception, and changing how we perceive a character changes the character.

There are only a few living directors who really excite me: David Lynch, Werner Herzog, the Coen Brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson and, yes, David Cronenberg (that all of these directors have had, or will have, films out this year only means that this is a great year for film). These are the auteurs, the artists and philosophers pushing the medium as far as it will go. Cronenberg isn't for everyone. His methodical style and somewhat stilted dialogue often turns people away from his films. Questions of artifice don't generally bother me, however, since I see Cronenberg, and all these directors for that matter, as being involved in concerns so much greater than the realistic portrayal of human conversation. They are driven by idiosyncratic obsessions rather than box office returns. Eastern Promises is poetry and philosophy wrapped in a pulsing tissue of human violence. So while it might not suit the tastes of everyone, if you are looking for an intelligent thriller that is almost laughably unconcerned with meeting conventional expectations, than look no further than Eastern Promises.

Experto crede: very strongly recommended for Cronenberg fans and anyone looking for an intelligent thriller.

Review :: Fido

Sometimes, things just work out. This weekend, 28 Weeks Later, the more-than-likely ill-conceived sequel to Danny Boyle's brilliant 28 Days Later, opens and is sure to deliver a screen-load of zombie cliches and studio-produced drivel. Looking at the trailer, I couldn't help but feel that 28 Weeks Later could potentially kill the new zombie-movie renaissance which was ignited by Boyle's film, Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead, Zack Snyder's remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, and Romero's own Land of the Dead. So, amidst these depressions, it was a pleasure to quite unexpectedly run across a little Canadian zombie film called Fido.

Fido is the story of a relatively quiet, idyllic mid-west 1950's American suburb. This is classic white picket-fence America. The twist? WWII never happened; instead, there were the zombie wars. Apparently, a zombie holocaust swept across the world, tearing families apart and pushing humanity to the brink of extinction until ZomCon, a company led by one Dr. Geiger, developed a collar that could be put on zombies that would repress their more nasty, flesh-eating impulses. Now, in an act of deliriously capitalistic optimism, these "tamed" zombies have become prestigious commodities. If you can afford one, you can purchase zombies and have them cut your lawn, walk your dog or even, if you swing that way, even use them as kinky sex toys.

Like David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Fido deliberately sets up the juxtaposition of idyllic suburbia with the creeping, ever-present possibility of violence and death. While Blue Velvet violently and without warning plunges its characters into dark and deep waters, the characters of Fido live quite comfortably in the middle of a sea of death. The undead have been domesticated... sort of. Zombie violence routinely erupts in this little town and, tragically, friends and neighbors are routinely eaten. Part of the film's brilliance is the playful nihilism that runs throughout it. People are killed and eaten matter-of-factly, drawing little more than looks and comments of annoyance from other characters. School boys are nonchalantly massacred; the elderly are casually ripped apart. It's all a part of everyday post-zombie war life. In the midst of the just-barely controlled violence, though, classic '50's sensibilities still reign. Sex isn't talked about; couples sleep in separate beds; women diligently obey their husbands. It's this delirious combination of polite sensibility and gratuitous violence that makes Fido such a fun movie.

If Fido is trying to make a point or to comment upon society (a la Romero's Dawn of the Dead), it isn't very obvious about it. Beyond the very rudimentary"zombies are a metaphor for repressed human urges / for the ills of society made manifest" subtext that runs through almost every decent zombie movie, Fido refrains from saying much. This may be a flaw and may ultimately mean that the movie isn't as endearing as other zombie films. It's charm, however, is its simplicity. Several familiar zombie tropes and conventions are at work here but none of them feel forced or awkward; many of them feel fresh and innovative. What Fido really feels like is a short story, like a interesting idea developed as far as it can be developed, which isn't really a criticism so much as it is merely an observation. Fido isn't a grand comment upon humanity like Boyle's 28 Days Later or Romero's Dawn of the Dead, but it is as fun and as silly and as hilarious as Wright's Shaun of the Dead.

Fido is a refreshing take on the zombie sub-genre and anyone even remotely amused by zombies should find a way to see this film. While it may not have the gore or the violence that most people expect from a zombie film (it's quite tame by zombie-movie standards), its wit and its humour make it remarkably entertaining. While 28 Weeks Later will destroy Fido at the box office, Fido holds its own as a clever little flick that is sure to become a cult favourite in its own right.