The Saddest Music in the World

E. A Solinas

at 6:31 pm

Love, death, beer, dismemberment, and really sad music.

“The Saddest Music” in the world is perhaps Guy Maddin’s most accessable movie to date, from a director known for strange, eerie pieces of work. But it’s also a brilliantly surreal tragicomedy, with shimmers of German expressionism painted over a story about fumbling for artificial happiness, in the middle of all that sad music.

It’s snow-smothered Winnipeg, in the Depression. Failing producer Chester (Mark McKinney) and his amnesiac girlfriend Narcissa (Maria de Medeiros) into a bar, just as beer baroness Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) announces something on the radio: a musical contest for the saddest song in the world, with $25,000 as the prize. Hundreds of musicians arrive to compete, hoping to bag the prize (and get bathed in beer).

She is also an old flame of Chester’s, who blames him and his alcoholic father for the loss of her legs — a loss that his dad Fyodor (David Fox) is trying to remedy, by making her glass prosthetics. And his brother Roderick returns home, paralyzed by grief over his son’s death and his wife leaving. But when he discovers his wife — Narcissa — is with his brother, he is determined to beat Chester. Who will create the saddest music in the world?

“The Saddest Music In the World” is a really weird movie — it’s full of glass legs, hearts in jars, skating funerals, and an antlered seer who predicts doom for Chester. But the movie is really focused on just one thing: the false happiness that people seek from transient things — money, prosthetics, booze — and how these only lead to more heartbreak in the end.

Maddin has a pretty unique style — neo-expressionist, like an old 1920s German silent film made in twenty-first century Canada. It’s grainy and full of rapid cuts (dozens of musicians playing until they bloody their hands), shadows and stark white faces, even against the drifting snow. The only exception is the dream sequences, which are just as blurry but full of vibrant colour.

But he sprinkles it with darkly humorous moments — Fyodor chugging beer from a glass leg — and dialogue ranging from zany (“I’m not an American. I’m a nymphomaniac”) to weirdly poetic (“… to lay claim to the jewel-studded crown… of frozen tears”). And there are moments of sorrow too, such as Roderick playing his ultimate sad song, for a woman who is only starting to remember him.

McKinney is deliciously despicable as the amoral Chester, Medeiros is sweet as the wide-eyed nympho, and McMillan is heartbreaking as the mournful Roderick, who is haunted by the loss of his family. But Rossellini really rules the movie as the brilliantly cruel, powerful Lady Port-Huntley — she rules every scene, even when she gets dumped into a bathtub.

“The Saddest Music in the World” is a deliciously bizarre tragicomedy, filmed with Guy Maddin’s neo-expressionist flair. Definitely a unique, delightfully dark movie.
Rating: 4 / 5

Katrina

at 8:17 pm

This film was absolutely amazing. The cinematography is top, with wird camera angles, a basically grainy black and white picture with some moments of really intense expressionist colours. This film is Art. The characters are all in their own way pathetic and sad which creates feelings of melancholy throughout the film but in a weird way you seem to be laughing out loud in many occasions.

It’s got this amazing scene where the ex-alcoholic father drinks the beer from the real-size glass legs he made for the Baroness.ASTONISHING!

hAVE TO SEE IT, definitely worth buying.
Rating: 5 / 5

Martin A Hogan

at 11:49 pm

If you know that Isabella Rossellini is married to David Lynch, you will have no problem understanding why she chose to star in this film. Director Guy Maddin tells a bizarre story, filmed through a snowy, distorted lens in black and white, making for a truly surreal vision. The story itself is simply about a Baroness in Canada who recrutes musicians from around the world to promote the worlds “saddest” music for a large sum of money. However, instead of gut wrenching sorrowful music, the audience is treated to a unique collage of `cold’ characters seeming to come from the 19th century. The cinematography is fantastic, but the characters don’t bring much life to the story. They are all stilted, bland inventions plucked straight from a silent film. At best the film is a study in film cinematography and style. There is love, tragedy and all the elements of true cinema, but it never fully evolves. However, the film is an advanced version of what David Lynch might have done if he chose this story, time and place. This film is for the real film buff who will not be disappointed.

The extra featurettes are truly amazing and spark enough interest in what a filmmaker will do to make his dream come true.
Rating: 3 / 5