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THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD Send This Review to a Friend
This film adventure is strictly for those who revel in plunging into forms of surrealism in the hands of a director (Guy Maddin) who enjoys blending outrageous visual ideas with outrageous plot notions. "The Saddest Music in the World" is a heady, super-strange mix that may delight some and make others want to escape in a hurry. Maddin doesn't allow much room for a middle ground.
The bare bones of the intricate plot and general mayhem is that a wealthy woman, beer Baroness Lady Port-Huntly, played by Isabella Rossellini, sets up a world-wide competition to find the saddest music in the word with a prize of $25,000 to the winner. The locale is Winnipeg, Canada, expressionist style. The time is 1933 during the Great Depression. Lady Port-Huntly's legs have been amputated following an accident. The prosthetic legs that she acquires are filled with beer, which will give you an idea of Maddin's imagination.
The competition gives Maddin, who co-wrote the screenplay with George Toles based on an original screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, the opportunity to include a barrage of musicians trying to prove that their work is the saddest. Call that part sort of a "Winnipeg Danny Rose," one big reality show or whatever. The characters include Mark McKinney as Chester, a luckless Broadway producer, who has a girlfriend named Narcissa (Maria de Medeiros), who has amnesia, something you may wish for upon leaving the theater.
Images, characters and events are splashed at the viewer, who may either feel assaulted or entertained. Although there are some amusing bits here and there, count me in the former category. Of course, it is always nice to see Rossellini, with our without legs. An IFC Films release.
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