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| The force of satire comes in making fun of the things we often don't see in ourselves. As such, we may have trouble seeing ourselves in the satire. I think that is especially true in The Saddest Music in the World, because, for all the artistry of the film, its story line never really draws us in so we can appreciate the satire within it. |
(2004) Film Review by Darrel Manson |
| This page was created onJune 11, 2004
This page was last updated on
June 11, 2004
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| CREDITS |
| Directed by Guy Maddin
Screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, George Toles and Guy Maddin
Cast
Isabella Rossellini .... Lady Port-Huntley
Mark McKinney .... Chester Kent
Maria de Medeiros .... Narcissa
Ross McMillan .... Roderick/Gravillo
David Fox .... Fyodor
Claude Dorge .... Duncan
Darcy Fehr .... Teddy
Erik J. Berg .... Orphan
rest of cast listed alphabetically
Brent Neale .... Polish Pianist
Jessica Smith .... Orphan Girl
Produced by
Atom Egoyan .... executive producer
Niv Fichman .... producer
Daniel Iron .... producer
Jody Shapiro .... producer
Original Music by Christopher Dedrick
Cinematography by Luc Montpellier
Film Editing by David Wharnsby
Runtime: Canada:99 min / UK:101 min / USA:99 min
For rating reasons, go to FILMRATINGS.COM, and MPAA.ORG.
Parents, please refer to PARENTALGUIDE.ORG |
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| SYNOPSIS |
1933: The Great Depression is in full black bloom. Failed Broadway impresario Chester Kent and his amnesiac sweetie Narcissa visit a fortune-teller on the outskirts of Chester's hometown of Winnipeg. The fortune-teller has little optimism for the future of this brash, happy-go-lucky entertainer. Chester demonstrates his vigorous disdain for these prognostications by demanding, and receiving, manual pleasure
from Narcissa just as the old crone augurs his doom. The prophecy has cost the couple their very last nickel.
Arriving in town, they meet a disillusioned streetcar driver who proves to be none other than Chester' s alcoholic ex-surgeon father Fyodor. Fyodor confirms that Chester is in fact an expatriate Canadian just as the streetcar pulls up at Lady Port-Huntly's famed Muskeg Brewery. The grand and imperious Lady, known far and wide as Beer Queen of the Prairie, is just announcing her latest contest: to find the saddest music in the
world. The winning musician will collect $25,000 and the tearful adulation of millions.
Chester knows an opportunity when he hears one broadcast on the radio. He bluffs his way into her office and it is there we realize that they are old friends – very close old friends – and also that Lady Port-Huntly, while still a regal beauty, is a double amputee who must rely on her manservant Teddy for locomotion. Chester and Lady reminisce about the accident which claimed her lower limbs: first a car crash with
Chester at the wheel, and then a botched amputation undertaken by the drunken Fyodor, with whom she had also been romantically entangled. Lady Port-Huntly is understandably bitter towards these Kent men.
Amongst the hordes of musicians descending on Winnipeg to participate in the contest, another Kent man arrives: Roderick, Chester' s elder brother, who is in elaborate mourning for his dead son and disappeared wife. Roderick travels as a Serbian under the nom de guerre Gavrilo the Great, Europe's Greatest Cellist.
The Muskeg Brewery contest begins, with musicians from Scotland, Siam, Mexico and West Africa, and all points in between vying for the prize. Chester and Narcissa, caught up in the excitement, make love in a snow bank. Fyodor reveals to Roderick that he has made a pair of glass legs for Lady Port-Huntly in an effort to assuage his guilt and proclaim his still-violent love for her.
Chester and Lady Port-Huntly, meanwhile, rekindle their own romance, though it is now as much an affair of hate as love. Passion is ever present. It is in full evidence in Fyodor's contest performance, as he plays "The Red Maple Leaves" on an upturned piano. Still, he is beaten by a troupe of African tribesmen. But there is greater shock in store for him: he realizes that Narcissa, the wandering nymphomaniacal amnesiac,
is none other than Roderick's departed wife, who has shielded herself from the grief of losing a son by simply forgetting all about it!
Roderick makes the same realization the moment he lays eyes upon her, and the sensitive cellist swoons. When he recovers, he sets about trying to bring Narcissa's memory back to her, but this is a cruel proposition, and perhaps a selfish one too – it seems that more than anything Roderick is looking for a companion in his grief. He takes his rage out on Chester, breaking a cornet across his brother's head.
Lady Port-Huntly is presented with her new legs. Delighted, she announces a ball to celebrate. But first, a dalliance with the recovered Chester! This is interrupted by Fyodor, whose grief takes him to the bottle and then to a spectacularly fatal accident which sees him floating face-down in a liquid barley grave.
Mourning their father doesn't bring the two Kent brothers any closer together. They square off in an instrumental arena. Lady Port-Huntly becomes part of Chester's number, posing on stage atop her vitreous, beer-filled legs. But the sound of Roderick's squealing cello is too much for the glass, and the legs shatter out from under her!
Upset does not begin to describe the Lady's manner. She thrusts a spear of glass into Chester Kent's gut. But he is determined to finish his performance. His dropped cigar ignites a blaze in the brewery. The musicians and the audience panic and flee. Roderick continues his grieving keen, which helps to finally bring back Narcissa's memory. They collapse together, ready to mourn as man and wife. Teddy carries legless Lady Port-Huntly
to safety. Chester finishes his number on his father' s piano as the flames close in. He dies as the last note is struck, and the brewery burns to the ground. -- © IFC Films |
 Review by
DARREL MANSON BLOG
Pastor, Artesia Christian Church, Artesia, CA
http://netministries.org/see/churches/ch01198
Darrel has an incredible love and interest in the cinematic arts. His reviews usually include independent and significantly important film. |
 In the midst of the sad times of the Great Depression, the Times of London declared (at least in this story) Winnipeg, on the Canadian prairie, to be the saddest place in the world. With all that sadness, people would be wanting beer. So Lady Port-Huntly,
a brewery owner in Winnipeg, who had plenty of sadness in her own life, puts on a worldwide contest to determine which country has the saddest music in all the world. What comes of all this sadness? In the end, more sadness. But along the way, a bit of farce.
The contest itself is a farce, with two nations going up against each other in head-to-head, single elimination competition -- going back and forth playing snippets of music until Lady Port-Huntly gives a thumbs up to one over the other. It's a little bit American Idol, a little bit The Gong Show, a little bit of sporting event. There are even two radio broadcasters providing color commentary.
In some ways, this film strikes me as something of an Canadian inside joke. I came away from the theater thinking there was a good deal that I just wasn't getting. As with all farce, this improbable story includes a good deal of social satire. In this case, some of it is pointed at Canadians, but much of it is pointed at Americans.
The focal point of the family is Chester Kent, an American Broadway producer. There is always a smile on his face. Nothing discourages him. He enters the contest representing the U.S. But wait -- as American as he seems, he's really a Canadian.
His father, a veteran of the Great War, still lives in that sad town of Winnipeg, racked with guilt over having mistakenly amputated both of Lady Port-Huntly's legs, many years earlier. He enters the contest representing Canada, memorializing all those lost in the war.
Chester's brother Roderick, a world class cellist who uses the stage name Gravillo enters the contest representing Serbia, expressing that nation's great sorrow for its part in starting World War I. But secretly, he is entering to express the sorrow he carries from the death of his son and abandonment by his wife.
Lady Port-Huntly is Chester's ex-lover, also the love of his father's life. Chester is currently running around with Narcissus ("I'm not an American, I'm a nymphomaniac."), who is Roderick's amnesiac wife.
The most noticeable thing about the film is the wonderful visual effect that mimics the films from the thirties. Most of the film is black and white (with a bit of blue tint to it), but it has brief flashes of color. It even is a bit streaked and grainy like old, worn film. It has a look that is appropriate and artful.
In many ways, however, the style has taken precedence over the substance of the film. Guy Maddin doesn't seem to care as much about the storytelling aspect of the film, so the intertwined family relationships between the main characters is never clearly developed. Instead, we are left to wonder how each of them came to be where and who they are.
In spite of this, there is still some substance buried under the impressive style.
The real satire deals with how Canadians and Americans see themselves and the world. Americans, as portrayed in this film, are optimistic, opportunistic, and grasping. America also really has no sad music of its own to use. Chester keeps recruiting people from other countries to be part of his big production numbers. Imagine a group of dancers from India dressed as Eskimos, dancing to a sorrowful version of "California, Here I Come." Rather
than develop our own culture, this film seems to be saying we just buy or steal the cultures of other peoples and places.
Canada also gets a bit of a send up. Like America, it has less history than most of the world to develop its own culture. But instead of bringing all the other culture to Canada, both Roderick and Chester have emigrated and adopted the ways of other places, even seeking to deny their origin.
Of course, neither portrayal is completely true, but neither are they completely false. The force of satire comes in making fun of the things we often don't see in ourselves. As such, we may have trouble seeing ourselves in the satire. I think that is especially true in The Saddest Music in the World, because, for all the artistry of the film, its story line never really draws us in so we can appreciate the satire within it.
Perhaps it's really not an inside joke that we don't get. Maybe it's just one that wasn't told very well at all. |
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