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Overrated

Just perfect...

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

I have to admit, as much as I've loved Guy Maddin's work that I've seen up to now, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so enjoyable from him as this. His work can always be considered, in a sense, Freudian (but beyond the obvious it shows he has a sense of humor about it), but here he mixes in some Jung and Pavlov and creates a mish-mash of androgyny and feverish displacement along with his usual cornucopia of matriphobia, isolation, and anxiety. It also has such immortal lines as "What is a suicide attempt without a wedding?" and "To hide his death from his mother, he replaced the father's body with a hamster and a metronome." Guy Maddin is certainly an idiosyncratic director, there's no arguing that. What I like is that he is much more than a one-trick pony. There are moments of hysteria in here you cannot help but get sucked into, and somehow even the most outrageous of content makes perfect sense in the worlds and realities he creates. At times you want to draw comparisons between this film and Psycho, Frankenstein, etc., but in the end it's only its own thing, and even as a Maddin film isn't QUITE like his other movies. The voice over is a lot of fun, especially later in the movie when it's used more sparsely, and above all the musical aside just hits the nail on the head--one of those uncanny moments when you didn't even realize the movie was missing something until it happened, and suddenly everything just seems right in the world.Definitely a movie, if any, to get into this director if you haven't, and if you have you'll certainly not be disappointed.--PolarisDiB

I really had no idea how I would react to this movie. I am fully aware of what Guy Maddin is capable of and that his films are anything but ordinary. My one fear coming into this movie was that the story wasn't going to be good enough to really grab hold of me. Within the first 10 or 15 minutes I was hooked. I have been very impressed with his technical skills thus far and this is no exception. The major difference here is that the story is so compelling. There are some flaws like the narration and I thought the ending could have been shorter, but overall I thought this was a fantastic production. It pays great homage to the silent era, in particular to some of Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau's work. Like most Maddin films, this is certainly not for everyone. Only those who are aware of what he does or are extremely open to new cinema experiences should venture out and watch this one.

This is one of those films that's more interesting to watch from an academic perspective than from an entertainment perspective. I do my ratings based on how much I enjoyed or was entertained by the movie, so I'm giving it a 4. If I were to rate it as an academic film, though, it would get a 10.It is shot in a very interesting manner, like a pseudo-silent film with elements of sound effect and reality. It's meant to convey disjointed memory and fragmentation of the mind, and it is interesting in these respects.However, the film has a lot of disgusting elements to it that I didn't find all that entertaining. They're mainly just disturbing. It has some very interesting imagery too, and some interesting concepts, but some of the character relationships (especially between the mother and son) are pretty disturbing.In all, this film will either appeal to you or it won't. For me, it was interesting from an academic perspective, but it wasn't a good watch, and I'll probably not go back to it a second time.4/10 if you're looking for entertainment. 10/10 from an academic standpoint.

I had the unique opportunity to see one of the few theatrical screenings of this film featuring live musical accompaniment, a foley crew, a live narrator (whose narration was, if I recall correctly, quite different to Rosselini's narration in the TV version used here in Canada), and a male soprano. It was a tremendous experience, but even then I thought it had the feel of a latter-day Aerosmith concert- a professional show masking a lack of substance and inventiveness in the performance and execution of the songs. In short, it felt perfunctory and almost like a cover-up."Brand Upon the Brain!" is certainly not one of Maddin's better films. It works fantastically in style and features an arresting, low-budget visual sensibility, but is quite severely lacking in the sort of substance one might expect from a Maddin film. Sure, there are themes being explored here, but they've already been covered better and in more detail in his other work. The narrative itself is outrageous, bizarre, and quite entertaining. I can forgive the film's shortcomings given how fast Maddin wrote this script (five weeks; the movie was shot in one fifth that time), but I don't really think there was that much potential in the idea of the film to begin with.The film's visuals are all there is that's worth talking about here. The editing is brilliantly jarring and wonderfully enhances the film's emotional moments, the cinematography is breathtakingly beautiful given its purpose in the film, and it is very fast-paced. As far as the rest of the film goes, I'll just say this: Maddin is frequently accused of treating his subject matter too lightly although his films are never overtly comedic. "Brand Upon the Brain!" is intentionally funny as are most of his other films, but there is a genuine lack of any clever humor here, as well as a complete lack of any real substance or worth. It works tremendously in style, and it's easy to watch, but there's just nothing more to it.7/10