STUDIO: Criterion
RELEASE DATE: August 12, 2008
WRITTEN BY: Guy Maddin & George Toles
DIRECTED BY: Guy Maddin
FEATURES: New, high-definition digital transfer
Narration tracks by Isabella Rossellini, Laurie Anderson, John Ashbery, Crispin Glover, Guy Maddin, Louis Negin, and Eli Wallach
97 Percent True, a new documentary featuring interviews with the director and his collaborators
Two new short films directed by Maddin exclusively for this release: It's My Mother's Birthday Today and Footsteps
Deleted scene
Trailer
PLUS: A new essay by film critic Dennis Lim

All directors are not created equal. If you gave the same script to Martin Scorsese, Brett Ratner, David Lynch, and Brad Bird, you would have four WILDLY different films. Having said that, most directors have general basics of filmmaking like camera techniques and three-act storytelling in common. Guy Maddin is not most directors. Maddin sees film as something much more transformative than the average movie maker. His movies are an experience, both for him and for his audience. The former is represented by the fact that most of what he's done, especially lately, has a heavy biographical motif with lead characters named 'Guy Maddin' and the filmmaker's claims that what he's doing is "97 percent true". Making these films, true or not, are clearly a sort of therapy, a bloodletting for Maddin on the big screen. But he's doing about the furthest from standard biopic fare that he possibly could write and direct. 2006's Brand Upon the Brain!, a film that Maddin notoriously called "97 percent literal autobiography", features a mom-and-pop orphanage in a lighthouse where the parents harvest "orphan nectar" like vampires, black magic ceremonies, some hallucinatory imagery, and other things that are, as Maddin himself says in a special feature on the new Criterion edition more "poetically true". (What a great phrase, and one that perfectly sums up Maddin's viewpoint).

Even more remarkable than the unique voice in every frame of Brand Upon the Brain! was the delivery of the film itself. Maddin shot his eerie meditation in black-and-white Super 8 and he did so silently. Brand Upon the Brain! wasn't just a journey back to childhood. It was a trip to the first days of filmmaking with a product that doesn't just look like movies that were made a hundred years ago, but, with its battered print and herky-jerky style, a product that actually looks like the film itself comes from the turn of the century. And, to make the experience of Brand Upon the Brain! even more remarkable, it was staged in its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival as an event. The silent film was accompanied by an orchestra, a singer who was billed as a castrato, an interlocutor, and sound effects conducted by Foley artists in lab coats. And that was just the beginning. As prints made their way around the world to play in arthouse theaters, they were often accompanied by actual narrators including Maddin himself, Crispin Glover, Laurie Anderson, and Isabella Rossellini (whose narration was recorded and included on versions of Brand that couldn't have live narration in the theater). Making Brand Upon the Brain! was clearly an unusual experience for Maddin, why shouldn't it be one for you?

Brand Upon the Brain! is a perfect choice for The Criterion Collection's 440th DVD release. A lot of people expect all Criterion releases to either be decades old, foreign films, or both, but an unusual film like Maddin's needs a DVD house like Criterion to treat it right. How do you possibly recreate such a unique experience on DVD? First, Criterion wisely includes narration tracks by Rossellini, Anderson, John Ashbery, Glover, Maddin, Louis Negin, and Eli Wallach, some of which were recorded live, to accompany the new high-definition transfer that's simply gorgeous. Brand Upon the Brain! is kind of a difficult film to watch - something I mean in the nicest way. Maddin cuts in a rapid, jerky style that makes the film more like a nightmare than anything else and continuity isn't the biggest concern - two facts which make the digital, black & white transfer that much more crucial to the film. It's a silent movie - high quality video matters. And the special features are typically fantastic. Hardcore Maddin fans will dive right in to the new documentary about Maddin, "97 Percent True", and two short films made exclusively for this release, "It's My Mother's Birthday Today" and "Footsteps". Brand Upon the Brain! is not a film for everyone, but those who are willing to see the medium as something different than what usually plays at the multiplex. It's a perfect fit for Criterion and another great release from the best DVD studio in the world.