Brand Upon the Brain! A Remembrance in 12 Chapters (2006)

Guy Maddin reluctantly returns to his childhood home, an abandoned Canadian island, where his parents ran an orphanage. As Guy fulfills his dying mother's request to paint the lighthouse ... See full summary »

Director:

Guy Maddin

Writers:

Guy Maddin, Louis Negin (narration),

Stars:

Gretchen Krich, Sullivan Brown, Maya Lawson

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Gretchen Krich	...	Mother
Sullivan Brown	...	Young Guy Maddin
Maya Lawson	...	Sis
Katherine E. Scharhon	...	Chance Hale / Wendy Hale
Todd Moore	...	Father
Andrew Loviska	...	Savage Tom
Kellan Larson	...	Neddie
Erik Steffen Maahs	...	Older Guy Maddin
Cathleen O'Malley	...	Young Mother
Clayton Corzatte	...	Old Father
Susan Corzatte	...	Old Mother
Megan Murphy	...	Murderous Sister
Annette Toutonghi	...	Murderous Sister
David Lobo	...	Oarsman
Eric Lobo	...	Oarsman

Storyline

Guy Maddin reluctantly returns to his childhood home, an abandoned Canadian island, where his parents ran an orphanage. As Guy fulfills his dying mother's request to paint the lighthouse which served as the orphanage, memories of strange events there overpower him. An undercover investigation by child author/detective Wendy & a revolt by the repressed children, blew open a cover-up by Guy's parents. Wendy disguised herself as her brother Chance and discovered that Maddin's inventor father performed outré scientific experiments on the orphans.

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Plot Keywords:

paint | island | lighthouse | orphan | mother | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Fantasy

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

ED Distribution [fr] Official MySpace

Country:

USA Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

24 September 2008 (France)

Also Known As:

Brand Upon the Brain!

Filming Locations:

Seattle, Washington, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$36,669 (USA) (8 June 2007)

Gross:

$227,064 (USA) (27 July 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

The Film Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Quotes

Narrator: What's a suicide attempt without a wedding?

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Connections

Edited into 97 Percent True (2008)

User Reviews

Dziga Vertov On Mushrooms

Make no mistake about it, Canada's Guy Maddin is an enigma. We're talking about somebody who's main inspiration seems to be old Soviet newsreels (the Kino Pravda series,to be exact,by Dziga Vertov,the father of the newsreel). Watching 'Brand Upon The Brain' was very much like watching an old Kino Pravda (Cinema Truth,by the way,for those who don't speak Russian)newsreel while running a temperature about 110 degrees,while on a mixture of psychedelic mushrooms washed down with codeine based cough syrup (and I wouldn't want it any other way!). The plot (but who needs a plot in a film like this?) concerns a middle aged man who is by some strange twist of fate, named Guy Maddin, returns to the island he grew up as a young boy, and hasn't been back in over 30 years,to try & clean up the old lighthouse/orphanage he grew up in. All I can say is....man!....if I had as screwed up a childhood as Maddin had, I guess I would turn out making films as bizarre as Maddin's are (not that I'm saying that's bad,mind you---check out his short film 'Heart Of The World',which won an award some years back as the best experimental short at some film festival who's name I forget). Although the film features a cast of unknowns (on these shores at any rate),it benefits from a narrative by Isabella Rossilini (daughter of Ingrid Bergman & Roberto Rossilini),who is unfortunately never seen on screen. Honestly, you can do a lot worse than not seeing 'Brand Upon The Brain', but why would you want to?