SummaryBrand Upon the Brain! In which the shocking truth is finally revealed about young Guy Maddin and his hellish childhood on a remote island, under the hyper-watchful eye of a crazed mother hellbent on restoring her youth and a diabolically distant scientist-father, proprietors of a mom-and-pop orphanage they surreptitiously operate within the dank ... Read More
Directed By:Guy Maddin
Written By:Guy Maddin, Louis Negin, George Toles
Brand Upon the Brain!
Metascore
Generally Favorable
79
User score
Generally Favorable
7.2
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
93% Positive
14 Reviews
14 Reviews
7% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
88
A feverishly imaginative Freudian vampire film from Guy Maddin, is like a silent-movie serial by Louis Feuillade or an improbable collaboration between writer Oscar Wilde and photographer Man Ray.
88
The film is a singular achievement.
83
This much is guaranteed: You won't leave thinking you've seen the like before.
80
The result is giddy, exciting and hilarious, not quite like any artistic experience you've ever had.
75
How often are psychosexual lunacy and classic cinema combined so fiendishly well?
70
Billed as a silent film, Guy Maddin's Brand Upon the Brain! is actually closer to a live theatrical event -- a feature-length motion picture screened with the accompaniment of a live orchestra, plus Foley artists, sound effects technicians and assorted vocalists, too. Together, they provide the elaborate soundscape for a typically frenetic, Maddin-esque amalgam of the autobiographical, Freudian and willfully absurd.
60
Not to discredit its wild artistry by saying the gimmick's the prize, but . . . the gimmick's the prize. Without all the hoopla, there simply isn't enough variation to this stylized fever-dream to justify its fatiguing running time, nor to call it anything less than predictably Maddin–esque.
User score
Generally Favorable
60% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
40% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
Jan 25, 2011
5
I am not really sure what to say about this. I guess I just am never going to understand Surrealism/Art- house/ Expressionism. Supposedly a autobiographical (yeah right because my dad had a ring that he stuck into children's necks to harvest their nectar so he could make my mom young again too) this story is extremely well shot and edited as a modern day silent flick. The visuals and camera work are disturbing yet at the same time pleasing to the eye. The shrieks of mother from the audiophone are downright scary and the visuals of here in the watchtower swiveling back and forth looking for the children is horror at it's best, yet again I just can't really enjoy these movies for anything other than technique. The story's don't appeal to me and really make little sense unless completely over scrutinized and over analyzed.
Production Company:
- The Film Company
Release Date:May 9, 2007
Duration:1 h 35 m
Awards
Chlotrudis Awards
• 1 Nomination
Village Voice Film Poll
• 1 Nomination
Berlin International Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
