Brand Upon the Brain!

Brand Upon the Brain! is a stunning feast of visual carnage and reminiscent mayhem. Jason Stracek's haunting score compliments Isabella Rossellini's incarnate interlocution in a twisted grotesque romantic detective story sprinting along an horrific high-wire. Nectar is ripe for the harvest. Everything that has happened before will happen again, twice. A hamster and a metronome can indeed mimic life. And what's a suicide attempt without a wedding?

A disturbed Guy Maddin returns to his childhood island home to paint his family's lighthouse with two fresh coats. Cover it up Guy. It's been thirty years since he's visited the hideaway, and the past assaults him with frenetic familiarities. As a boy, Guy's island home was an orphanage run by his sadistic parents. The children must avoid mother's vigilant eye and savage Tom's vicious black masses. The Lightbulb Kids (Chance and Wendy) arrive at the Old Black Notch Orphanage to secretly investigate mysterious holes found on the backs of the orphan's heads. Guy's sister Sis quickly falls for Wendy as she pretends to be her brother Chance, and Guy, having fallen for Wendy, can't avoid longing for Chance either. Much to mother's dismay. But Guy loves his mother, and The Case of the Face in the Lighthouse uncovers a salacious, seductive enthusiasm. After all, what's a little sadism without love?

Part fairy-tale, part hallucination, Brand Upon the Brain! delicately exfoliates expectations with a succinct, unified vision. It's a cinematic treat the likes of which I haven't encountered since Blue Velvet or The Enigma of Kasper Hauser. Originally screened with two foley artists and full orchestral accompaniment, Brand Upon the Brain! is presented with sharp, acute editing, designed to mimic the presence of memory. Which makes it all the more memorable.