Featured Audience Ratings

• Michael S

  
  I really admired the style, spirit, and atmosphere of this film; it recreated the essence of silent films of the 20s brilliantly. But it kind of did feel like a chore for me to sit through at times. It felt a little repetitive and once again I was left feeling like I just would NEVER… More
  I really admired the style, spirit, and atmosphere of this film; it recreated the essence of silent films of the 20s brilliantly. But it kind of did feel like a chore for me to sit through at times. It felt a little repetitive and once again I was left feeling like I just would NEVER truly enjoy a Guy Maddin film (THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD still leaves me feeling uneasy just thinking about it, but I feel like I need to give it another shot). I did admire it's craftsmanship though, and can easily acknowledge that many would really like this film. Recommended to the more adventurous of viewers.

• William D

  
  [size=3]Brand Upon the Brain! is a bore. (Yes, there is an exclamation point in the title.)[/size] [size=3][/size] [img]http://www.twitchfilm.net/pics/BrandUponTheBrain2.jpg[/img] [size=3][/size] [size=3]I certainly like that it's very radical, both in its narrative and its… More
  [size=3]Brand Upon the Brain! is a bore. (Yes, there is an exclamation point in the title.)[/size] [size=3][/size] [img]http://www.twitchfilm.net/pics/BrandUponTheBrain2.jpg[/img] [size=3][/size] [size=3]I certainly like that it's very radical, both in its narrative and its presentation. It's a silent film with live orchestral accompaniment, and the film was made recently. It's not a revival of a 100-year-old film.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]But I thought the film itself was just awful. I'd love to see a talented artist attempt the kind of project Guy Maddin has envisioned. Maddin himself is not up to the task.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]The fact that he succeeded in getting artists like Isabella Rosellini to work with him is puzzling in the extreme. She'[/size][size=3]s one of the live narrators in the NYC production. (The night I saw it, however, Joie Lee was the narrator -- Spike Lee's sister.)[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]The film is a bizarre Freudian psychodrama that plays like a twisted autobiography of the subconscious. A boy named Guy lives on a remote island with his parents and sister, and they run an orphanage. There are no other adults on the island save for his parents.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]His parents are psychos. The mother is the more fully developed character. She is a domineering, omnipotent, omniscient nutcase. She sits in a lighthouse and surveys everything on the island, controlling her two children through a kind of telepathy.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]To (over)[/size][size=3]emphasize her vampiric qualities, the film has her sucking "nectar" from the orph[/size][size=3]ans, which she gets by drilling holes in [/size][size=3]the kids' heads. Whenever she gets a fix of nectar, she becomes [/size][size=3]younger in appearance. But when she flies in[/size][size=3]to a rage, which usually occurs at times when [/size][size=3]her children get sexually aroused, she becomes old again.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]In addition to the cla[/size][size=3]ssic (hackneyed) Freudian drama of the overpowering mother, we get the classic[/size][size=3] (hackneyed) Freudian drama of the boy who has confusing c[/size][size=3]rushes on both b[/size][size=3]oys and girls.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]The film is saturated with bisexual arousal, which I suppose is Guy Maddin's version of polymorphous perversity. I found it tiresome, predictable and repetitious and devoid of all genuine arousal. Maddin is particularly fond of filming his male actors naked from both the front and the back. I haven't seen[/size][size=3] this many male buttocks and penises [/size][size=3]since the last time I saw porn.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]I certainly don't look down my nose at Freudian psychodrama or bisexuality.[/size][size=3] In fact I'm very interested in such themes. My problem is that Brand Upon the Brain! is such a banal, predictable version of it. I get the feeling that Maddin has been making the same films since the 1950s and hasn't [/size][size=3]grown in the slightest since the days of his youth.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]I'm happy that avant-garde projects like this are getting made in 2007 and publicly shown.[/size][size=3] I'm just sad that this one was so mediocre. It gives the avant-garde a bad name.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]One side note about the orchestral accompaniment: there is a male singer who d[/size][size=3]oes a couple of [/size][size=3]short arias in a soprano voice during the film. What's very, very strange is that the marketing material claims this man is a castrati. [/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]If you know anything about opera, you know that in Europe some boys used to be castrated so that they could keep their angelic voices into adulthood. The practice waned about 300 years ago, but Guy Maddin appears to want to revive it. I'm sure the man wasn't really a castrati. There's a new trend in opera for men to cultivate a soprano voice. I'm sure this man is one of those "counter-tenors," as they're known.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3]For this film team [/size][size=3]to claim that they have[/size][size=3] found a castrated man in 2007 is yet another example of how this[/size][size=3] is not much more than a [/size][size=3]circus parading as serious art. I feel like I was hoodwinked into spending $40 on this. Yes, the admission was $40.[/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3][/size] [size=3][/size]

• Walter M

  
  In "Brand upon the Brain!" Guy Maddin(Erik Steffen Maahs), the house painter, not the experimental film director, returns to the remote lighthouse where his parents(Clayton Corzatte & Suzanne Corzatte) raised him and his sister(Maya Lawson), and ran a mom and pop… More
  In "Brand upon the Brain!" Guy Maddin(Erik Steffen Maahs), the house painter, not the experimental film director, returns to the remote lighthouse where his parents(Clayton Corzatte & Suzanne Corzatte) raised him and his sister(Maya Lawson), and ran a mom and pop orphanage. It was not a particularly happy time as Savage Tom(Andrew Loviska) bullied all the other children. Teen detective Wendy Hale(Katherine E. Scharhon) arrives at the island, thinking something even more sinister is afoot and disguises herself as her brother Chance. "Brand upon the Brain!" is a giddy brew that not only contains Guy Maddin's usual homage to silent movies but also references to "Twelfth Night" and steampunk. Nothing against Isabella Rossellini(love the Green Porno shorts, by the way), but the narration is unnecessary and the movie is substantially better without it. On a thematic level, Maddin warns about the danger about looking too intently back in time for answers and is certainly not nostalgic. For example, the mother wants to control all apsects of her children's lives, keeping them immature forever and of course away from sex.

• Mike N

  
  Alive, in Victoria Falls (Zambia side today). Returning Stateside on Tuesday. Bummed about the Rockies getting their rumps handed to them in the World Series. Happy I'm alive to experience the bummer, after the Zambezi. That river kicked my arse. See ya folks soon, and with pics!… More
  Alive, in Victoria Falls (Zambia side today). Returning Stateside on Tuesday. Bummed about the Rockies getting their rumps handed to them in the World Series. Happy I'm alive to experience the bummer, after the Zambezi. That river kicked my arse. See ya folks soon, and with pics! By the way, any good movies out lately? Saw the majority of both Away From Her and The Hoax on the flights out here, but not in their entirety (bleeping Air Canada's crappy in-flight electronics can be blamed for that). Both were excellent until being snapped away like a ghost line from my transfixed eyes. Bah.

• Ryan M

  
  9.0/10 "Brand Upon the Brain", the most recent Guy Maddin feature to be labeled as a silent psychodrama, is an ambitious film that honestly does offer up something new for curious, adventurous movie-goers. It exists in a world of its own, is a true original, and… More
  9.0/10 "Brand Upon the Brain", the most recent Guy Maddin feature to be labeled as a silent psychodrama, is an ambitious film that honestly does offer up something new for curious, adventurous movie-goers. It exists in a world of its own, is a true original, and engulfs itself in a mysterious, but intriguing sort of cinematic fog. This is what I'm talking about. Alas, I'll try as hard as I can - and I mean that - to summarize the experience of watching Maddin's film. Films can simply be films; they don't have to be moving stories of heroism, comedy, or whatever. "Brand Upon the Brain" is bizarre, and takes most of its influence from Silent Films (and as you can see, it is a Silent Film itself; making it a sort of clever "homage" to the era when these films were at their prime). This does not mean that the film lacks the qualities of movies we are used to; but even being accustomed to the rules of comedy, tragedy, adventure - all things we're familiar with by now - cannot prepare us for such an experience as this. But that's what I love about it. A character named after Guy Maddin (the director behind the film) is asked to paint his mother's lighthouse. Almost instantly, Guy recalls his ill-fated and unfortunately conflicted childhood, in which he lived, loved, and lost. But I suppose this is how life is supposed to be experienced; and Guy's outlook on it was not cynical in spite of the troubles that he faced, or rather, the troubles that faced him. He lived on an island, along with his sister and many other orphans, under the care and ever-so-watchful eye of his mother. Guy's father works as a secluded scientist shrouded in mystery; although a kid-detective, Wendy Hale, seems to have her eyes on him when it comes to exposing just what he does. Let's just say that Guy's father's business is often tormented and ugly. Guy's sister becomes a big central character a little ways into the film. After a game of spin-the-bottle, "Sis" develops feelings toward Wendy. She disguises herself as Chance, a fake brother of Guy, in order to successfully and happily be with the young teen detective. Mother is angered and sexually jealous through realizing this. Things get weird when family tension arises, but oh, don't let me spoil it for you. The film was originally screened with live-audio performances and narration by stars such as Crispin Glover and Isabella Rossellini. It was meant to be some sort of Rocky Horror-esque "event movie". It hasn't garnered such a cult quite yet, but if they bring back such special screenings, and I believe they should, then this might become an even bigger hit than it already is. This is a film that deserves to be seen if only for its intent; to be strange, weird, outlandish, and out-of-this-word odd. Perhaps the magic of "Brand Upon the Brain" is in its style, and only its style. Here is a movie that tells its delicate and compelling little narrative through images that move by so fast and abruptly that you'd think this was the work of a master music video director. However, it isn't; and Guy Maddin is much more accomplished. He is a filmmaker, an artist, trying to show the world something new, and the world he has depicted here; it's something new, for sure. You'll be wondering whether it's the best thing you've ever seen or if it's the worst. I know that I did. I finally decided that it's neither; but it's still a great film, and I still recommend it very, very highly. When you don't exactly know what the hell you're watching, yet you still enjoy the experience, you know you're witness to the latest radical cinematic acid-trip. I enjoy the surreal and the imaginative; and this is like a sweet, sweet dream. It is filled with images of sexuality, voyeurism, and even horror. There's so much crammed into one movie that you might even find it a bit pretentious. But filmmakers are allowed to do something that nobody else has the guts or talent to do. I know that Guy Maddin has certainly made something beyond what I've ever seen here, and that calls for celebration. Screw criticism; I say that this is a wonderful film, with a pulse. If you like silent films, you will like this modernized, stylistically-based one. It's nice to have a film that cares about not making too much sense on the first viewing. It requires me to revisit it. And I will do so like a gentleman should; and I won't complain, partially because I can't, and also because I won't.

• John B

  
  Maddin really gives me a headache sometimes. Very interesting over half an hour. Mind numbing over the course of an entire film.

• Tom S

  
  I love this. And not only because it features my favorite cinematic namesake, Savage Tom.

• Quinto W

  
  The story is pretty intriguing by itself that I'm sure it would work no matter how you told it, but it does give it an extra kick (not to mention it helps get away with some things) to see it in such a visually arresting way; basically a bizarre reimagining of an old silent film.

• Ed Fucking H

  
  Part two of Guy Maddin's auto-biographical trilogy. Revolves around an orphanage in a lighthouse on an island, where a group of kids are raised by an overbearing mother figure and the father figure is a mad scientist. Explores themes of incest, gender swapping, repressed… More
  Part two of Guy Maddin's auto-biographical trilogy. Revolves around an orphanage in a lighthouse on an island, where a group of kids are raised by an overbearing mother figure and the father figure is a mad scientist. Explores themes of incest, gender swapping, repressed sexuality, vampirism etc. I really liked this one. Where the Saddest Music in the World and Cowards Bend the Knee felt like homages to an era that has come and gone, this feels a little more personal, while still taking ques from the eras of film that obviously inspire Maddin. This one is also a silent film, albeit with some narration here and there. Not much else to say. Recommended.

Read all 9 featured audience ratings