The Saddest Music In the World (2003)

THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD  (2003)
    D: Guy Maddin                                                ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    Isabella Rossellini, Mark McKinney, Maria de Medeiros
When a Winnipeg beer baroness launches a contest to determine which country produces the saddest music, musicians from around the world come together to compete. This looks like it was shot inside a snow globe. (It was actually filmed in a freezing warehouse: Both the snow and the steam coming from the actors' mouths are real.) Taking his visual cues from silents and early talkies, Maddin's both a visionary and a throwback. Using old forms to challenge the conventions that made those forms obsolete, he creates a kind of soft-focus dreamworld in which art and artifice hook up, knock back a few pints, and stumble arm-in-arm out into the snow.