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0 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Empty. Jul 02, 2009
I succeeded, barely, in sitting through this film, hoping it might reveal--perhaps at last in some remarkable endtwist--some hint of redeeming substance. But it never did: the pointless pastiche of silent films, adolescent detective stories (Errol Morris did this much better in the Thin Blue Line), B vampire movies, comic book SF and other such cultural detritus, that you see from the beginning is all that you ever get.
There is much in silent film that deserves frequent consultation: the ur-cinematic ability of telling a story deftly and engagingly by purely visual means has eroded somewhat (though not everywhere, of course: Ford and Welles and Hitchcock remained masters) as the crutch of language came to bear most of a film's narrative weight; the elegance and inventiveness of the purely physical comedy of the era of Keaton and Chaplin has never been recaptured. There are similar points to be made about lost excellences of black and white film photography. So I watched Brand Upon the Brain carefully, and hoped that I'd be treated to some kind of useful reappropriation. But I came away convinced there is simply nothing there.
I get the impression the film was an attempt not so much to give a genuine embodiment of postmodernism as simply to provide the filmic equivalent of a dictionary definition of the term. There is something of a paint-by-number feel to BUTB: you get the sense that just beneath the toe-deep concept of the thing there lies a just checklist or a routine of postmodern tics and devices. Again, I kept looking for some kind of insight that might have motivated them all, but came up empty.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 and you thought "eraserhead" was weird! Mar 05, 2009
this is a beautifully conceived and truly original surrealist comedy drama, filled with romance and terror, pathos and parody, a half painted lighthouse and a staircase of orphans, a claustrophobic island and the eternal cycles of memory, the bald head and the baby, a tushy crazed mommy and a workaholic father, vampyrism of brain nectar and lesbianism of sex, turpentine baths and butter on the wall, the maternal searchlight of anger and the paternal foghorn of purity -- and raging aging! and rumania! oh don't forget rumania!
everything is told in black and white, grainy and misprinted film, wobbly and erratically vignetted images, and a campy imitation of the silent film conventions of motion pantomine and text slides (but with punctuating sound effects, deliriously incoherent music, and a fiendishly arch narration by isabella rossellini thrown in).
i wasn't sure what to expect and now, well ... i'm not sure what to tell you to expect. you won't forget it, you won't always enjoy it (i found it dragged in places), but you will find it not quite like anything you've ever seen before -- unless it was by guy maddin.
A movie that will brand itself upon YOUR brain Feb 18, 2009
Really neat. "Brand Upon The Brain!" is a gothic horror film, rich with psychoanalytical elements, told mostly in the style of an old silent film. I say "mostly" because director Guy Maddin has also included modern, stylish editing techniques, as well as creepy, effective voiceover narration by Isabella Rossellini. I wish the move was a shade more literal and less open to interpretation (especially during its final minutes), but that's definitely not a deal-breaker. This is a striking film worth at least a viewing.
The extras on the Criterion disc of "Brand Upon The Brain!" are very good, too, especially two short films, including one- "Footsteps"- that ties in strongly with the main feature. A 50-minute documentary, produced by Criterion for this disc, helpfully illuminates many aspects of Mr. Maddin's film.
This movie is memorable in its own right, and is especially welcome as an antidote/respite from more typical DVD fare.
Infinite possibilities of soundtrack and Maddin's genius Nov 29, 2008
This is one of Maddin's best, though my favorite is still his Dracula one. I like the DVD because there are several audio tracks so you can make you own art via messing with the narration soundtrack. I started out first with Isabella Rosellini, then moved to the next, which was Maddin himself. It was a joy to find Laurie Anderson on one of the tracks, also Crispin Glover. My favorites were Maddin and Glover, though there was another actor on there who also wrote the script, Louie... can't seem to find him in the credits online.
But if you have a DVD controller like mine, you can make a game of pushing the audio button and going through the 8 or so narrator audio tracks and hear different interpretations of the movie. You can also do it via the menu, there is a section to pick narrators, but I would rather change it on the fly.
The extras are wonderful too. Footsteps is a Maddin filmed look at the foley artists, there is a film based on a singer called the Manitoba Meadowlark. I am not sure if it is worth the $35 or so, but if you found a copy used, I would say go for it. I could watch this movie many times. I like how the actors look, the storyline which is a little lesbian and secretive, a little bit of a Victorian zombie fairytale and steampunk fantasy (the aerophone is one of the best steampunk tools ever if you ask me).
Sweet nectar! Romania! Romania Romania!
(You'll have to watch it to get that.)
I wonder why Maddin hasn't done some film with the girls from Rasputina yet. They seem evenly matched, but maybe that exists only in my dreams.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Silent Film as Performance Art Nov 26, 2008
Guy Maddin's BRAND ON THE BRAIN! is art first, film second, and stands like a puzzling and intriguing piece you'd see in a museum. A description in one of extra features on the disc explains that BRAND ON THE BRAIN! "toured as a live event to many cities around the world, featuring an eleven-piece orchestra, a Foley team, a celebrity narrator, and a castrato." So, really, this film is basically a silent movie presented like a concert, with the celebrity narrator and Foley team becoming an essential part of the act itself. Some of the narrators were Isabella Rossilini, Guy Madden himself, Laurie Anderson, Crispin Glover and -- and this was a big surprise -- Eli Wallach. The disc supplies a couple of those performances from the 2007 New York presentations as alternative tracks. Whichever one you choose, in an ingenious display of melding style and meaning, Maddin utilized the limitations inherent in the silent film era to conjure the sense of distant memory. It incorporates not only the dropped frames, which exaggerates the spliced editing, but his minimal use of sound and distortion creates a sense of dreaming and semi-consciousness. It suggests the sense of a memory deteriorated by time, yet one that has lost none of its power. His recollections flicker on the screen not so much as what they were in reality, but how they settled into his subconscious. Therefore his mother is depicted as a possessive harridan enthroned in a turret atop a lighthouse, scouring the beachhead with a searchlight, searching for escapees from her dysfunctional authority. Sometimes her voice is rendered as just a harsh squawk by the Foley team. It's worth noting that no actual dialogue of the actors is ever heard, but is instead conveyed through the mellifluous narration supplied on the default track by Rossillini. Sometimes her voice was synced with the actors lips, most of the time not, as she simply tells you what is being said, and sometimes conveying just the gist of what was going on. So like a dream, you're there and not there; and the most bizarre events are paradoxically eerie and mundane.
There is a story here really, too, if you're inclined to look at it. But it's all symbolic and surreal. I found it so intriguing as it was, with his dark shadows and blanched lights, I really didn't care to analyze the archetypes to delve into their deeper meaning. It was fun watching his imagination at work. The end product exists somewhere between dadaism and science fiction, embellishing an archaic medium with a darkly humorous panache.
I can't say, as some others have, how this fits into the Maddin canon. I've only seen one other of his films, and it didn't strike me the way this one did. I highly recommend this if you're interested to see what a film can be in the hands of an artist, of a man who treats the medium with no regard for the mainstream. And if you're not impressed the first time out, watch it a time or two more. It's something you really shouldn't miss. Then you can go back to normal life.
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