A couple nights ago I had the great pleasure of attending a screening of Guy Maddin's new
film Brand Upon the Brain! at the palatial Castro Theater as part of the 50th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival. (The festival actually ends today....)
I can only bow to Guy Maddin's genius. His films are totally idiosyncratic, totally dynamic, totally gorgeous. This newest film was no exception. Guy himself was there to introduce the film, and the screening included live Foley Sound Artists, a full orchestra, a castrato, and a narrator, Joan Chen. Did i mention Brand Upon the Brain! is a silent film? All the sounds for the movie were created live onstage in front of the audience.
The film's plot involves a boy named Guy Maddin (natch) who lives on a bleak island off of Canada in a lighthouse which serves as an orphanage. The orphanage is policed by Guy's overprotective, youth obsessed mother. When she is looking for Guy, she turns the lighthouses' rickety huge lantern out and around the entire island while yelling for him to get home. Guy's father works tirelessly and wordlessly in the basement inventing things and mysteriously producing some kind of strange nectar....
There's also this whole part of the plot involving Guy and Guy's sister ("Sis") both falling in love with the same woman, who leaves and then returns to the island masquerading as a man to try to win Sis' affection and also get to the bottom of the mysterious nectar. Sis and "Chance" begin a hot and heavy relationship, all the while trying to keep hidden from the watchful and disapproving eyes of Guy and Sis' mother. Guy tags along jealously, somehow drawn to and growing a "boy crush" on this new "male" figure on the island.
film Brand Upon the Brain! at the palatial Castro Theater as part of the 50th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival. (The festival actually ends today....)I can only bow to Guy Maddin's genius. His films are totally idiosyncratic, totally dynamic, totally gorgeous. This newest film was no exception. Guy himself was there to introduce the film, and the screening included live Foley Sound Artists, a full orchestra, a castrato, and a narrator, Joan Chen. Did i mention Brand Upon the Brain! is a silent film? All the sounds for the movie were created live onstage in front of the audience.
The film's plot involves a boy named Guy Maddin (natch) who lives on a bleak island off of Canada in a lighthouse which serves as an orphanage. The orphanage is policed by Guy's overprotective, youth obsessed mother. When she is looking for Guy, she turns the lighthouses' rickety huge lantern out and around the entire island while yelling for him to get home. Guy's father works tirelessly and wordlessly in the basement inventing things and mysteriously producing some kind of strange nectar....
There's also this whole part of the plot involving Guy and Guy's sister ("Sis") both falling in love with the same woman, who leaves and then returns to the island masquerading as a man to try to win Sis' affection and also get to the bottom of the mysterious nectar. Sis and "Chance" begin a hot and heavy relationship, all the while trying to keep hidden from the watchful and disapproving eyes of Guy and Sis' mother. Guy tags along jealously, somehow drawn to and growing a "boy crush" on this new "male" figure on the island.
