OldAle1 "In my pocket is a jar. In the jar, preserved in my own tears, is my son's heart." If those quotes simultaneously give you a chuckle, puzzle you, disturb you, and perhaps promote the tiniest tinge of wistfulness or longing, then Guy Maddin's hilarious, surreal, frenetic, and even slightly sad tribute to Busby Berkeley musicals, beer and international relations circa 1933 just might be the thing for you.This is as crazy and inventive as anything Maddin has ever done, and contains most of the themes and tropes for which he has become famous (well, famous amongst connoisseurs of weird): a film language that has for the most part skipped the past 75 years of history, instead relying on silent, early sound and 2-strip Technicolor devices for its bizarre and beautiful style; dysfunctional families and equally dysfunctional sexual situations, with a father and son both smitten with the same woman and both partially to blame for the loss of her legs, and the son and his brother also smitten with another woman who happens to have amnesia. Add to this Maddin's typical self-deprecating love of his country (Canada) and city (Winnipeg) and a plot involving a contest to find "the saddest music in the world" and you've got the makings of something that only this demented director could dare to dream.The mutilated woman happens to be beer baroness Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini, channeling Jean Harlow and perhaps a bit of Marlene Dietrich), and her would-be-lovers are Canadian WWI veteran Fyodor Kent (David Fox) and his estranged son Chester Kent (Mark McKinney) whose name is taken from the character played by James Cagney in the 1933 Berkeley-choreographed Footlight Parade and who also has dreams of Broadway grandeur. The two Kents had competed for Helen's hand years before and both played a part in her disfigurement; now, the legless lady of lager holds a contest in the middle of worldwide Depression, asking: which country produces the saddest music? Not only do father and son both compete for the prize of $25,000, representing Canada and America, but another son, now representing Serbia, returns to compete as well. This is Roderick, aka Gravillo the Great (Ross McMillan), cellist extraordinaire, who has lost his wife and son (prompting the quote about tears and heart above) and who now wishes to compete for the prize and atone for Serbia's role in starting WWI. Unbeknownst to him, though, his wife Narcissa (Maria de Medeiros) has not merely run off, but through amnesia and typically outrageous Maddinian coincidence is now the girlfriend of his brother.The musical sequences are generally quite amusing, and not only offer elements of the backstage Hollywood style but also a game-show format reminiscent of cheesy TV programs like The Gong Show - presided over by the thumbs up/down of the beer baroness, and announced for the radio by a pair of effusive sportscaster types - most of the real poignancy that is actually apparent in some of the performances is undercut by all of this lunacy, as well as regular scenes of audience members enjoying the sponsor's beverage in large quantities - and regular dunkings of the winners in each one-on-one elimination contest in a huge vat of suds.I could go on at length about the absurdities of the plot, but I think you get the drift; what's fascinating to me is how the sexual intrigues and the whole baroque strangeness of the basic situation - worldwide musical competition during the Depression, set in Winnipeg in the winter - seems to refract the Canadian sense of provincialism and dependency on America. Of course such an event could never, would never have happened, not in Winnipeg of all places - but of course when Maddin invents it, and offers it as a lens through which to filter the American fantasy-world of the backstage musical of the era, it all seems to make some kind of crazy sense; and though the film is for the most part quite funny and absurd it gains a strange kind of power as it builds towards an apocalyptic climax, and I for one found myself thinking a few sad thoughts to go with the smiles of gratitude at the masterpiece Guy Maddin had made for me.Presented on the excellent MGM DVD with two making-of documentaries that are both solid, and three shorts, "A Trip to the Orphanage", "Sombra Dolorosa", and "Sissy Boy Slap Party".

MisterWhiplash Guy Maddin is a master in at least one respect: he knows how to use 8mm film. Very few filmmakers attempt to use it at the length he does, or to such seemingly limitless invention, and all the while he has in mind an aesthetic somewhere in the middle of an expressionist silent film director and someone looking to break a little ground with a music video. In fact two of his films specifically, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary and Brand Upon the Brain, work better just as they appear to be: stories told in pantomime, without dialog, but also with all of the heavy emotions that come with. The Saddest Music in the World is a sound film, and must be in order to include such music and some occasionally really funny dialog. But its aesthetic is so bizarre and, indeed, eclectic to tastes of modern and pre-WW2 cinema that it has to be seen and heard to be believed.The premise is that a "Lady" in Winnepeg (Rossellini) is hosting a contest for everyone around the world to come to Winnipeg to sing the saddest songs known anywhere, and the winner will receive 25 grand (in "Depression-Era" money). But there are complications- a devilish entrepreneur (Mark McKinney in a sly and convincing dramatic performance) comes into town to bring back old memories- the legs that Rossellini no longer has due to a horrible accident stacked upon a huge blunder by McKinney's father- and there's other troubles in romantic entanglements (i.e. McKinney's brother sees that Narcissa, played by Medeiros, is with him now and may have a talking tapeworm). There's this and more, plus the brothers' father in his attempt to resolve the situation with glass legs full of, yes, beer, plus the various competitions between countries with their own styles and vibrations and sorrowful melodies (there's even "Africa" at one point).But a lot of this is, in fact, really crazy. So crazy that it takes a guy as smart and dedicated to his own warped craft like Maddin to make it make any kind of sense. But it does make sense, beautiful sense at times, and it's helped a lot out by the striking acting and the sense of morbid comedy that pops up from time to time (even just the announcers, who have that depression-era sensibility to them are funny). And watching the quixotic montage, the dazzling camera angles that sometimes go by in blinks or feverish moments in the midst of despair, make it all the more worthwhile. If I might not recommend it as overwhelmingly as Brand Upon the Brain it's only for a lesser connection emotionally with the material, of being pulled in inexorably to its conclusion. Nevertheless no one who wants to miss a challenge, take on something just this side of insanity and poetry, owes it to watch this- experience the songs, the romance. 8.5/10

caldoni I'll be honest, I loved this movie. That being said, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone or even anyone but a few arcane film technique fetishists. The movie has the feel of a lost classic, but it's so damn goofy that it's hard to figure out where it's coming from much less where it's trying to take you. People who watch expressionist films will understand the technique of "just going with it" and seeing how you feel at the end.Maybe that's Maddlin's flaw? He forgets that modern audiences are always checking in with themselves and questioning the images they see always ready to click away from content they dislike. My friend walked out of "Coffee and Cigarettes" after the second episode, he'd given it a fair shake and didn't see any chance of it improving. But it did. Oh man it did. He would have been rewarded if he would have just went with it for a bit.So admittedly, I was confused and alienated by big stretches of The Saddest Music In The World. It's true the characters are too ridiculous to care about much and the dissociative camera work does as much to take you out of the scene as put you in. And the brilliant Two-stripped color scenes are so bright and vibrant that the mono-tinted and black and white scenes that follow them don't have much punch. On the whole it pastiche's together more styles than a single movie should: expressionism, musical, silent, early talkie, early color, comedy, even some very documentary looking montages recalling the earliest documentaries. And the sound was as poorly mixed as any major film release i've ever seen. The film's message is obscured in it's own aesthetics so thoroughly that one can scarcely get a footing on anything like meaning or message.I could go on and on about the flaws of this movie. As for it's graces? its genuinely funny in parts, original in others, it feels like an old distressed classic which is fun for buffs like me. But all this is cursory.So why the hell did I like this movie so much? I liked it an awful lot. I liked it because it's messed up and it's messy. It seemed to be having fun throughout most of it and if you give yourself over to: stop asking sensible questions and try to have some fun, because really-if you do that you'll have a blast at this movie.

shigguriddo I think that it is one of my favorite films. The only reason why I even considered the idea of not giving maximum points for the movie was the fact that the movie contained alcohol propaganda :D I had no idea what the movie is about so at the beginning I was stunned and wondered if I entered the right room - the old-school style sure was surprising. As I had dug myself into the movie I was enchanted... It gently delt emotional and brutal violence. The action froze me - during the whole movie I felt this buzz in my head and incapability to decide if i should laugh or cry. I would say that in the center of the whole story is not the competition but the desperate need to feel sadness - all the main characters had experienced something traumatic that made them feel detached of the world and realistic valuation on emotions. I definitely recommend it to everybody who appreciates movies that are more than just plain amusement!