I finished watching the film "The Saddest Music in the World" this morning. It's an experimental film by Guy Maddin. The film is set in Winnipeg, Manitoba where Guy Maddin is from and where he sets most of his films, apparently. I like that the film is artsy and at the same time because it relies so heavily on old-time movie cliches and absurdist scenarios and imagery, it never takes itself too seriously. It's refreshing to see an indie movie not take itself too seriously and still be funny.

The film stars two of my favorite actors: Isabella Rosselini (the crazy lady in Blue Velvet) and Mark McKinney (from Kids In the Hall fame). It's actually appropriate that Mark McKinney is one of the stars. The entire film feels like an extended Kids In the Hall sketch--one of the darker sketches. The dialogue sounds Kids In the Hall-ish. As do some of the plot elements. It's the same sort of irreverent homage to old movies and stock old movie characters and lines.

I liked the mix of technicolor and convincingly old-timey black and white. It didn't look fake. It looked like Maddin actually used the cameras (or film) they used back then. The few scenes shot in technicolor actually seemed poignant to me--they were pretty to look at. Not pointless.

At times, the film reminded me of David Lynch's films. I felt like I was watching a gritty dream. Each scene was crowded with stark black and whites, German expressionist set pieces and fake snow. The narrative somehow managed to get across to me without being straightforward. I understood what was going on--even when I didn't. The films just kind of meanders (in a good way) around the impressionistic plot of a beer magnate double-amputee who holds a international contest to find the saddest song in the world. It's a big-idea concept--highly fantastical. Which is why I think it feels like a dream.

There's an allegory in the movie about America's relationship to other countries (Mark McKinney's character, who represents America in the contest, eventually recruits the losers from every other country to join the "American" team, highlighting America's identity crisis or propensity to exploit other cultures in the name of winning--in this case, money) but I don't think it's Maddin's intention to make this the focal point of the story. What sticks out more than anything else is Madden's imagination. The film feels like a Richard Brautigan poem--the way it skims over intricacies in favor of poetic storytelling: the big idea.

I really liked the film and the only reason I'm writing about it is because I needed to write something and I couldn't think of anything else. So.....