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Movies / On DVD / Brand Upon The Brain!
Brand Upon The Brain!

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Brand Upon The Brain! (2006)

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Reviews Counted: 46

Fresh: 42

Rotten:4

Average Rating: 7.9/10

Consensus: A bizarre yet compelling spectacle, Brand Upon the Brain! is a unique cinematic experience.

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins

Genre: Horror/Suspense

Theatrical Release:May 9, 2007 Limited

Box Office: $201,013

Synopsis: Guy Maddin (THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD, MY WINNIPEG, CAREFUL) directs this moving silent satire about several families and the secrets they possess. Emotional yet thoughtful and infused with... Guy Maddin (THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD, MY WINNIPEG, CAREFUL) directs this moving silent satire about several families and the secrets they possess. Emotional yet thoughtful and infused with surrealist touches, the film offers an original and somewhat horrific view on the experience--the aching delicateness--of growing up. Through his unconventionally autobiographical, transcendently un-gimmicky methods, Maddin once again cuts to the core of emotional truth. The film exists in several presentations, including its original silent format as well as with several voice-over narrations from such talents as Isabella Rosselini and poet John Ashbury. [More]

Starring: Gretchen Krich, Eric Maahs, Catherine Scharhon, Sullivan Brown

Starring: Gretchen Krich, Eric Maahs, Catherine Scharhon, Sullivan Brown, Todd Jefferson Moore, Maya Lawson

Director: Guy Maddin

Director: Guy Maddin
Screenwriter: Guy Maddin, George Toles
Producer: Amy E. Jacobson, Gregg Lachow
Composer: Jason Staczek
Studio: Vitagraph Films

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Release:

Aug 12, 2008

[DVD Details]
 
 
  • In the weird and wonderful super-cinematic world of Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin, personal memory collides with movie lore for a radical sensory overload. This eerie excursion into the gothic recesses of Maddin's mad, imaginary childhood is a silent, black-and-white comic science-fiction nightmare set in a lighthouse on grim Notch Island, where fictional protagonist Guy Maddin was raised by an ironfisted, puritanical mother. Originally mounted as a theatrical event (accompanied by live orchestra, foley artists, and assorted narrators), Brand upon the Brain! is an irreverent, delirious trip into the mind of one of current cinema's true eccentrics.
  • Source: Image Entertainment Inc.
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    Reviews for Brand Upon The Brain!

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    Full Review Source: Reel.com | comment Comment
    10/18/08
    Reel.com

    If you are drawn to oddball films like David Lynch's Eraserhead, then you should feel at home here.

    Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
    09/02/08
    Dennis Schwartz
    Ozus' World Movie Reviews

    It is almost an unintended parody of the excesses of art house filmmaking - like something that would have shown up on Dan Akroyd's old Saturday Night Live vignette "Bad Cinema."

    Full Review Source: ESplatter | comment Comment
    07/09/08
    Steve Biodrowski
    ESplatter

    The mythic nuttiness gets under your skin just as these archetypal figures gradually penetrate each other’s subterfuges, skulls, and orifices.

    Full Review Source: Stylus Magazine | comment Comment
    12/01/07
    Bill Weber
    Stylus Magazine

    Visually opaque and narratively enigmatic.

    Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | comment Comment
    11/01/07
    Duane Dudek
    Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
    N/R

    Click to read the article

    Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | comment Comment
    10/27/07
    St. Louis Post-Dispatch

    It's weird, creepy, imaginative and unlike anything else out there.

    Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
    10/11/07
    Sean Axmaker
    Seattle Post-Intelligencer

    The deliciously unhinged Guy Maddin makes films that are funny, sinister and mysterious at the same time.

    Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
    10/04/07
    Colin Covert
    Minneapolis Star Tribune
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    You feel like you've stumbled across a lost treasure from some studio's vaults that was meant to be buried forever.

    Full Review Source: Capital Times (Madison, WI) | comment Comment
    09/14/07
    Rob Thomas
    Capital Times (Madison, WI)

    This more-than-surreal feat is swimming in winks and nods to Maddin’s influences. Moments of Bunuel, Hitchcock and Lang are everywhere.

    Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
    08/30/07
    Sara Schieron
    Boxoffice Magazine

    Seeing is believing, and the clever Maddin understands a dimension of his medium that many of his contemporaries won't dare approach: with the right compelling images, anything is possible.

    Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
    07/28/07
    Matthew Sorrento
    Film Threat

    For me it captures Maddin at his loopiest and most inspired.

    Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | comment Comment
    07/27/07
    John Monaghan
    Detroit Free Press
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    ... an experience that has to be seen/heard to be believed.

    Full Review Source: Los Angeles CityBeat | comment Comment
    07/15/07
    Andy Klein
    Los Angeles CityBeat

    Narrated by Isabella Rossellini and enhanced by Jason Staczek's superb score, this is characteristically intense and, unlike most of Maddin's silent-movie models, frenetically edited.

    Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
    07/13/07
    Jonathan Rosenbaum
    Chicago Reader
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Imagery, language, and emotion can be pulled apart and put back together any way you like

    Full Review Source: Movie Habit | comment Comment
    07/12/07
    Marty Mapes
    Movie Habit

    No matter how much the director disguises the tale in flickery symbolism, the emotions feel painful and personal.

    Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
    06/29/07
    Ty Burr
    Boston Globe
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    exploring the phenomenon of memory with a transcendence that includes reality and fantasy with equal measure and equal importance. It is dark, it is disturbing, and yet, this is the man's genius, it is also wildly, improbably, blessedly funny

    Full Review Source: Killer Movie Reviews | comment Comment
    06/20/07
    Andrea Chase
    Killer Movie Reviews

    The casual viewer may well reject the experimentalism outright, but for those who seek more unique rewards, they're definitely here.

    Full Review Source: New Times | comment Comment
    06/15/07
    Luke Y. Thompson
    New Times

    Brand Upon the Brain! is like no other movie you're likely to see this year -- or any other year. It won't be to everyone's taste. But for those who like their cinema weird, it doesn't get any weirder or more oddly fascinating than this.

    Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
    06/15/07
    Ruthe Stein
    San Francisco Chronicle
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    ... a feverishly imaginative Freudian vampire film ...

    Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | comment Comment
    06/15/07
    Carrie Rickey
    Philadelphia Inquirer
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic
     
     
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