The Saddest Music in the World

Starring:Mark McKinney, Isabella Rossellini, Maria de Medeiros, David Fox, Ross McMillan, Louis Negin, Darcy Fehr, Claude Dorge, Talia Pura, Jeff Sutton, Graeme Valentin, Maggie Nagle, Victor Cowie, Jessica Burleson, Wayne Nicklas, Nancy Drake, David Gillies (III), Daphne Korol, Adriana O'Neil, Jeff Skinner
Director: Guy Maddin, Caelum Vatnsdal
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Only the mind of Guy Maddin could conjure up The Saddest Music in the World, in which a double-amputee beer baroness invites musicians of all nations to compete in a grand music competition... in Winnipeg. The only thing zanier than the plot is Maddin's style, which makes the film look like a lost artifact from the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari era, a jumble of Expressionist compositions and gauzy focus. It helps if you're already a fan of the director of Careful and Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary, for this is not Maddin's most cohesive picture. Kids in the Hall stalwart Mark McKinney is a little too arch as a sharpie returning to Manitoba, but Isabella Rossellini is delicious as the "Beer Queen of the Prairie." By the time she straps on a pair of hollow glass legs filled with bubbly lager, you're either delighted by this movie or you've given up. --Robert Horton

Description

The dark days of the Depression set the stage for surreal black comedy in this "intoxicating" (Time) musical melodrama from acclaimed director Guy Maddin. When a legless beer baroness (Isabella Rossellini) in Winnipeg announces a contest to find the world's saddest tune, a pint of trouble brews among a fractured family competing for the $25,000 prize. As the disturbing depths of the linksbetween each other, the baroness and an amnesiac nymphomaniac are exposed, one thing becomes clear:It will take more than a pool of alcohol to drown their sorrows!

Customer Reviews:

The music is you.......2007-05-31

Love, death, beer, dismemberment, and really sad music.

"The Saddest Music" in the world is perhaps Guy Maddin's most accessable movie to date, from a director known for strange, eerie pieces of work. But it's also a brilliantly surreal tragicomedy, with shimmers of German expressionism painted over a story about fumbling for artificial happiness, in the middle of all that sad music.

It's snow-smothered Winnipeg, in the Depression. Failing producer Chester (Mark McKinney) and his amnesiac girlfriend Narcissa (Maria de Medeiros) into a bar, just as beer baroness Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) announces something on the radio: a musical contest for the saddest song in the world, with $25,000 as the prize. Hundreds of musicians arrive to compete, hoping to bag the prize (and get bathed in beer).

She is also an old flame of Chester's, who blames him and his alcoholic father for the loss of her legs -- a loss that his dad Fyodor (David Fox) is trying to remedy, by making her glass prosthetics. And his brother Roderick returns home, paralyzed by grief over his son's death and his wife leaving. But when he discovers his wife -- Narcissa -- is with his brother, he is determined to beat Chester. Who will create the saddest music in the world?

"The Saddest Music In the World" is a really weird movie -- it's full of glass legs, hearts in jars, skating funerals, and an antlered seer who predicts doom for Chester. But the movie is really focused on just one thing: the false happiness that people seek from transient things -- money, prosthetics, booze -- and how these only lead to more heartbreak in the end.

Maddin has a pretty unique style -- neo-expressionist, like an old 1920s German silent film made in twenty-first century Canada. It's grainy and full of rapid cuts (dozens of musicians playing until they bloody their hands), shadows and stark white faces, even against the drifting snow. The only exception is the dream sequences, which are just as blurry but full of vibrant colour.

But he sprinkles it with darkly humorous moments -- Fyodor chugging beer from a glass leg -- and dialogue ranging from zany ("I'm not an American. I'm a nymphomaniac") to weirdly poetic ("... to lay claim to the jewel-studded crown... of frozen tears"). And there are moments of sorrow too, such as Roderick playing his ultimate sad song, for a woman who is only starting to remember him.

McKinney is deliciously despicable as the amoral Chester, Medeiros is sweet as the wide-eyed nympho, and McMillan is heartbreaking as the mournful Roderick, who is haunted by the loss of his family. But Rossellini really rules the movie as the brilliantly cruel, powerful Lady Port-Huntley -- she rules every scene, even when she gets dumped into a bathtub.

"The Saddest Music in the World" is a deliciously bizarre tragicomedy, filmed with Guy Maddin's neo-expressionist flair. Definitely a unique, delightfully dark movie.

Sad, Mad, Shocking, and Funny.......2007-04-21

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The film takes place in Winnipeg, Canada, "The world capital of sorrow" in 1933 during the Great Depression. A legless beer baroness, Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini in a blond wig) organizes a contest to find the saddest music in the world. Musicians from around the globe arrive to Winnipeg to try and win a $25,000 prize. Among them is Chester (Mark McKinney), her old boyfriend who arrived with his lover, Bosnian singer Narcissa (Maria de Medeiros of "Pulp Fiction"), the amnesiac nymphomaniac who listens the advice of a telepathic tapeworm in her bowels. Chester's brother Roderick (Ross McMillan) is the contestant from Serbia performing by the name Gavrilla the Great, hiding his face under the big veil and looking like Salvador Dali in his craziest. He is overwhelmed by the death of his young son and looks for his long lost wife, who happened to be Narcissa who had lost her memory and does remember neither him nor their little boy. Chester's and Roderick's father Fyodor (David Fox) enters for Canada. He's got his own sad story. One night while drunk, he caused a car crash and attempted to save his lover by amputating her crushed leg -- but, being drunk cut off the wrong leg. The lover was Lady Port-Huntly who at the time of the crash was cheating on Fyodor with Chester in the car. Is it crazy enough? Wait until you see it. Visually, the film is nothing I've seen before but I understand that Maddin's fans will recognize his very distinguished style - the film shot in black and white, and edited in such a way as to recall the old pictures from the 1930s. There are a couple of color scenes, and those moments stand alone. One of the most striking color images is Isabella Rossellini standing on glass legs filled with beer from her breweries. If for nothing else, the film should be seen for this jaw - dropping moment.

It is certainly not for everyone but I am glad I saw it. How could I not like this dialog?

Fyodor: Are you an American?

Narcissa: No, I'm not an American. I'm a nymphomaniac

Fyodor: As long as you are not an American, you can be anything you want

foggy relish.......2007-01-17

What can I say...Mr. Maddin has once again created a world of fog, shadows, and stark black and white platforms that his character walk in and out of. It all plays out like a lost film from the 20's that you saw in a dream but was never really produced.

Is There Anybody Here As Happy As Me?.......2006-12-28

Some people will just never get over the black and white graininess of this movie or the absurdity or what some have dismissed as the thinness of the plot. And that's a shame, because this is a phenomenal movie. Hilarious and weird and incredibly entertaining. Just lie back and take in the weirdness of it all. As far as I'm concerned this is Madden's most accessible movie, because it's the funniest. And Mark Mckinney is just brilliant as the habitually high-spirited showman who's never known sadness (or love), yet has to figure out how to "get the salt water flowing" to win the prize. "Sadness is just happiness thrown on it's a--."

I wish I could give zero stars.......2006-08-06

This film was a total bore. Not because it was in black and white to look like it was made in the '30s. It was boring because of the lackluster script and acting. Just because something is "unique", and that it is, doesn't make it great. It makes a uniquely boring movie.

Stay away. If I meet anyone that prattles on what a wonderful movie this is I will know I'm in the presence of a pretentious snob.

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