|
Hot Picks
| |
|
The Saddest Music in the World
Canada 2003
produced by
Niv Fichman, Jody Shapiro, Daniel Iron (executive), Atom Egoyan (executive) for Buffalo Gal Pictures, Rhombus Media, Ego Film Arts
directed by Guy Maddin
starring Mark McKinney, Isabella Rossellini, Maria de Medeiros, David Fox, Ross McMillan, Loouis Negin, Darcy Fehr, Claude Dorge, Talia Pura, Jeff Sutton, Graeme Valentin, Maggie Nagle, Victor Cowie, Jessica Burleson, Wayne Nicklas, Nancy Drake, David Gillies, Daphne Korol, Adriana O'Neil, Jeff Skinner, Craig Aftanas, Miles Boisselle, Brock MacGregor
screenplay by Guy Maddin, George Toles, based on an original screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, music by Christopher Dedrick, production design by Matthew Davies
review by
Mike Haberfelner
|
|
|
 |
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
|
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
 |
|
1933: At the height of the Great Depression and towards the end of the
Prohibition in the USA, a Canadian beer brewer queen, Helen Port-Huntley
(Isabella Rossellini) decides to hold a contest to find the saddest music
in the world, to promote her own brewery and give her customers in America a
soundtrack to drink to.
This news catches the ear of Canadian born Broadway producer Chester
Kent (Mark McKinney), who enters the contest for the USA and wants to give
the crowd sadness, the American way, with pizzazz and gimmicks. And
that despite the fact that Kent is a man who doesn't know sadness, even if
he hardly has enough money to afford a tramway farer.
The whole thing is further complicated by the fact that he is the
former lover of Helen Port-Huntley, but he left her when she lost both her
legs. And the man responsible for her losing her legs was Kent's own
father (David Fox), a Canadian patriot who at one point had to amputate
one of her legs, but was so drunk that he initially cut off the wrong one
... but father is madly in love with Helen, even if she might never
forgive him, and enters the contest for Canada. But as if that wasn't
enough, Kent's brother Roderick (Ross McMillan) enters the contest as
well, for Serbia (a land that should know sadness since the first bullets
of the Great War were fired there), and he cannot stand Kent and is
forever looking for his wife who has gone missing in the war - and thinks
to recognize her in Kent's companion Narcissa (Maria De Medeiros) ...
Be that as it may, the contest starts, with always two nations
competing against each other with the winner staying in for the next
round, and father Kent tries but fails to win back Helen's heart with a
sad sad song. So he builds her his own brand of legs (glass legs filled
with beer) to atone for his sins - but to no avail, she just can't forgive
him. Meanwhile, Kent and brother Roderick win round after round in the
contest, the former with ever more lavish Broadway style musical numbers,
the latter with sad sad Serbian songs. And besides, Kent rekindles his
relationship with Helen (who with her glass legs feels all woman again) to
make sure he will win, while Roderick gets it off with Narcissa ...
Of course, in the finale of the contest it's brother versus brother,
with Kent even ensuring the help of Helen in his musical number, just to
make sure he wins ... but with disasterous results, since right at the
climax of the song, her legs break in front of everybody ...something she
is sure Kent is responsible for, so she stabs him with a shard from her
legs ... and wuite fittingly for a contest to find the saddest music in
the world, the whole thing ends in desaster when the auditorium catches
fire, putting an unexpected end to the proceedings ...
A simple synopsis can never come even close to transmitting the
fascination of a Guy Maddin-film: At the same time this film looks like
something you have never seen before and is highly reminiscent of musicals
and melodramas of the 1930's, at the same time Maddin's directorial style
seems to be hopelessly outdated and excitingly fresh, and bizarre, absurd
and surreal ideas meet a consciously cheesy story. The idea alone of
holding a pageant for the saddest music of the world, complete with an
always happy announcer couple and a beerbath for the winners at the end of
each round is worth one's while, and that's only one of the bizarre ideas
of the film.
Just great ... and it isn't even among Guy Maddin's best films (in my
book, his best are still Careful and Tales
from the Gimli Hospital, should anybody want to know).
|
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find The Saddest Music in the World at adultvideouniverse.com
