ThurstonHunger
Nice to have to films recently that really connected with me.This one seems to have found a bypass straight to my subconscious in parts. Perhaps due to the flickering quality, of the retro silent shooting? The black and white hip and hypnagogic approach. I really did find myself on that threshold of awareness and dream.At the outset, I thought Maddin was making a film through found footage, so good was the choppiness of the scenes and the sea. It must have been amazing to see this with a live narrator and better yet a team of foley fiends. But seeing it alone, that also helped with the films resonance.The story as such is a strange slurry, as others have denoted. Twisted personal archetypes (the male protagonist sharing the filmmaker's name and likely a largesse of his angst). After seeing this, I'm hard-pressed on how to put it all together. It's like a 3D puzzle that I now find flattened in my hands.And I'm not film student, just a fan, but I suspect this is rife with opportunity for many a thesis. Nosferatu shadows. Lighthouse introspection. Sexual innuendo and overdoses. Owning the video is certainly an option, with its multiple narrated versions (including Crispin Glover and Laurie Anderson), and its surfeit of cinematic sensation. The soundtrack as jagged as the isolated island's coastline, competes well with the aforementioned foley fun.Fans of outre film, like the Ann Arbor Film Fest can look inward in many ways with this.I find myself drifting closer to the Maddin crowd.9/10
FoxWolf87
This is one of those films that's more interesting to watch from an academic perspective than from an entertainment perspective. I do my ratings based on how much I enjoyed or was entertained by the movie, so I'm giving it a 4. If I were to rate it as an academic film, though, it would get a 10.It is shot in a very interesting manner, like a pseudo-silent film with elements of sound effect and reality. It's meant to convey disjointed memory and fragmentation of the mind, and it is interesting in these respects.However, the film has a lot of disgusting elements to it that I didn't find all that entertaining. They're mainly just disturbing. It has some very interesting imagery too, and some interesting concepts, but some of the character relationships (especially between the mother and son) are pretty disturbing.In all, this film will either appeal to you or it won't. For me, it was interesting from an academic perspective, but it wasn't a good watch, and I'll probably not go back to it a second time.4/10 if you're looking for entertainment. 10/10 from an academic standpoint.
angel_s_garden
I should have never watched this movie. The style of filming may be considered artsy to some, but it is considered migraine-inducing to me. I think it may have had an interesting plot, but since I couldn't watch it for long stretches at a time I missed a lot. The flickering pictures and stop motion filming branded my brain. I stopped watching mid way through and won't be back for a second try. I suppose if I were home alone in my own lighthouse some dark and stormy evening, this might be just the ticket... PS Not sure if the lighthouse/ film style thing can be considered a spoiler, but I don't want to be blacklisted on my first review ;)
Seamus2829
Make no mistake about it, Canada's Guy Maddin is an enigma. We're talking about somebody who's main inspiration seems to be old Soviet newsreels (the Kino Pravda series,to be exact,by Dziga Vertov,the father of the newsreel). Watching 'Brand Upon The Brain' was very much like watching an old Kino Pravda (Cinema Truth,by the way,for those who don't speak Russian)newsreel while running a temperature about 110 degrees,while on a mixture of psychedelic mushrooms washed down with codeine based cough syrup (and I wouldn't want it any other way!). The plot (but who needs a plot in a film like this?) concerns a middle aged man who is by some strange twist of fate, named Guy Maddin, returns to the island he grew up as a young boy, and hasn't been back in over 30 years,to try & clean up the old lighthouse/orphanage he grew up in. All I can say is....man!....if I had as screwed up a childhood as Maddin had, I guess I would turn out making films as bizarre as Maddin's are (not that I'm saying that's bad,mind you---check out his short film 'Heart Of The World',which won an award some years back as the best experimental short at some film festival who's name I forget). Although the film features a cast of unknowns (on these shores at any rate),it benefits from a narrative by Isabella Rossilini (daughter of Ingrid Bergman & Roberto Rossilini),who is unfortunately never seen on screen. Honestly, you can do a lot worse than not seeing 'Brand Upon The Brain', but why would you want to?
AD
