Mind Games
ByTaran Khan

The opening moments of Brand Upon The Brain (Canada) describe it as a "Remembrance in Twelve Parts". And as the grainy visuals and staccato editing pattern of Guy Maddin's nostalgia flick established themselves, the countdown on the screen was accompanied by the gentle patter of feet heading towards the exit. But for the tougher souls with a taste for non-linear narrative who stayed behind, the film offered compelling, often hilarious viewing.

Guy, a house painter, returns to the island he grew up on in response to his aged mother's orders to give the lighthouse "two coats of paint" so she may die in peace. As he proceeds, he is carried through a fog of memories involving his parents (who run an orphanage in the lighthouse), his beautiful and defiant elder Sis, and the cross dressing Wendy Hale, celebrity detective whose love for Sis prompts her to disguise herself as her "brother" Chance. Also featured are Father, perpetually inventing in his laboratory, and Savage Tom, who conducts voodoo rituals with the orphans. The narrative is unabashedly surreal — there are sexual overtones in Mother's treatment of Guy, like kissing his freshly bathed bottom rapturously. Father turns out to be extracting nectar from the brains of the orphans and is murdered by Sis, only to be resurrected by a "raging, aging" Mother. And Chance/Hope returns towards the end as a phantom to fill in the adult Guy with details of what he missed growing up with adoptive parents on the mainland. The fun is in the visual emphasis of Maddin's humor — the flashes of contradictory images, the partial framing and the delightfully expansive emoting of the actors. The audio track provides a rich layer to the film, with the interlocutor (Isabella Rossellini playing disembodied voice) getting some hilarious lines in. My favorite part of the film, however, were the captions, which were in turn dripping with heavy emotion ("The Past, the Past. The Future, the Future") and a Blyton-ish humor ("straight to bed").

This was my first experience of a Maddin film, but even to my inexperienced senses it soon became clear that despite the apparent chaos, the film is the product of a skilled craftsman who doesn't lose control of his complicated devices and dream world characters. There are smart directorial decisions and subtly expressed but undeniable emotional content behind the seeming chaos of Brand Upon The Brain, all the more commendable since the theme and form of such films make it easy for directors to fall into the trap of passing off random whims are creativity.

The flickering black and white images evoke a sense of nostalgia for "pure" cinema, but the sense of oldness is constantly offset by outrageous, often very funny subversions of cinematic devices and conventions. Sort of like seeing grandma in leather pants. That perhaps is the key to the appeal of Brand Upon The Brain that kept me seated right through to Part Twelve — even in the middle of the laughs, it never feels safe to assume the familiar.

Taran Khan

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