The Saddest Music in the World (2006)

The Saddest Music in the World

Roger Ebert loved this movie. As the reigning Oprah Winfrey of film criticism, Mr. Ebert packs a tremendously large thumb within the popular conscience, and the pair of Fonzies that he and his sidekick have bestowed upon Guy Madden’s The Saddest Music in the World goes along way towards identifying this films strongest feature. Madden’s films traditionally occupy a fuzzy domain between art video and cinema, fitting comfortably into neither domain. They are (mostly) too long to watch in an art gallery and too boring to watch at home (where the temptation to turn the channel to a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond is simply too high for such unapologetic self indulgence.) The Saddest Music however, trades in silly plot devices and ridiculous characters for ones that are quirky, original and compelling. More importantly, however, Madden trades in oblique autobiography masked as high minded “conceptualism” for genuine metaphor and broad social commentary. In essence Guy Madden, eccentric “avant guardian” and amateur’s auteur, has with The Saddest Music in the World, made a real film.
The film is set in a Depression era Winnipeg winter and is shot mostly in black and white. (Fittingly the films Wizard of Oz/Schindler’s List/Chromophobia moment of colour occurs during a funeral.) The plot revolves around a Willy Wonka style contest wherein a local legless beer Baroness (Isabella Rossellini) is in search of the world’s saddest music. Performers from around the world travel to Winnipeg in hopes of winning the grand prize of “25,000 Depression era dollars”. A bizarre love pentagon emerges between the Baroness, a quasi-American musical producer (Mark McKinney), an amnesiac nymphomaniac (Maria de Medeiros), a retired Canadian soldier/drunken disgraced doctor (David Fox) and a pseudo-Serbian cellist (Ross McMillan). As per usual in Madden land, most of these participants are physically or legally related to one another, although Madden’s love of all things Oedipal is noticeably less pronounced here than in his other films. Strong performances are turned in by all of the principles, most notably by Mark McKinney who seems to have become Canadian film and televisions resident morally-ambiguous-corporate-slime-ball (see Brain Candy and the more recent and fabulous Slings and Arrows). His role here as the American contestant continuously attempting to bribe his competition, is a wonderfully satirical commentary on American corporate culture in general and the Hollywood film apparatus in specific.
For me, however, the most interesting aspect of The Saddest Music in the World is Madden’s understanding and commentary on the role that the projection of national identities and stereotypes plays in shaping the individual identity. Each musical group performs (brilliantly) in a stereotyped version that is “representative” of their country. It is the stuff of airport lobby shops (ie. duty free maple syrup). These notions are generally laughed off by all local participants. But how important and attractive are these myths? (My Irish friends groan with mere mention of the word Leprechaun. Yet they will also, if the topic is accidentally broached, tell you that Leprechaun’s are no good bastards responsible for all sorts of mischievous acts throughout the Irish countryside. Don’t even get them going about the Banshee.) How much of our notions of self are dependent upon such constructs? How deep do they individually run? The Saddest Music in the World offers many possible suggestions.
The Saddest Music in the World is a film that I was not expecting to enjoy. Guy Maddin is like porno for filmophyles and this is something that I am decidedly not. (Although I do love movies, particularly those with fast car chases, loud explosions and gratuitous female nudity.) But as the Ebert and Roper endorsement would possibly suggest, this is Madden’s most accessible venture to date. It fits in and holds up nicely with the better and weirder auteurs of mainstream contemporary English language cinema such as Lars Von Trier, Hal Hartley, any of Charlie Kaufman’s scripts (directed by whomever), David Lynch and either of the Andersons:

Pete Smith liked this movie.