Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

RyothChatty ridiculous rating

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

frankcwalsh I stopped the DVD after an hour when it became repetitive. Before that, it was an interesting but weird movie. It's filmed as a silent movie with the characters dressed in the robes and hair styles of the early 1900's. Nobody talks but you do have a narrator who told you what is happening and words written in white on a black background that let you know other things. It's made in black and white with grainy images and I actually had to check the date of he movie o make sure it wasn't 70 years old. It was interesting but slow for about 40 minutes, until the story stopped moving. I debated whether to stop for about another 15 minutes then fast forward for another five then finally stopped it. I don't mind movies made today in black and white(I'm a big fan of film noir), and I like movies that are different. What I don't tolerate are movies that are boring and waste my time.

tedg Here's the problem: Maddin is an impressive filmmaker. He is important and has made at least two films that are important to me. But he is not a very interesting person. So when he applies his mastery to making a personal film - a film essentially about his dreams and demons, it turns into something of a tragedy for the opportunity misspent. This really is a wonderful film in the way it is put together. The whole team seems be closely attuned, with a central role played by the editor. The sound effects are astonishing - and this is a silent film. The references, duly abstracted, from past masterworks are copious and respectful. The narrative structure is suitably complex with manifold overlapping metaphors. The problem is that what we actually get directly from him is boring. Sex and mothers matter; dreams are real; nothing recedes. But we knew that better and more deeply than he shows. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Polaris_DiB I have to admit, as much as I've loved Guy Maddin's work that I've seen up to now, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so enjoyable from him as this. His work can always be considered, in a sense, Freudian (but beyond the obvious it shows he has a sense of humor about it), but here he mixes in some Jung and Pavlov and creates a mish-mash of androgyny and feverish displacement along with his usual cornucopia of matriphobia, isolation, and anxiety. It also has such immortal lines as "What is a suicide attempt without a wedding?" and "To hide his death from his mother, he replaced the father's body with a hamster and a metronome." Guy Maddin is certainly an idiosyncratic director, there's no arguing that. What I like is that he is much more than a one-trick pony. There are moments of hysteria in here you cannot help but get sucked into, and somehow even the most outrageous of content makes perfect sense in the worlds and realities he creates. At times you want to draw comparisons between this film and Psycho, Frankenstein, etc., but in the end it's only its own thing, and even as a Maddin film isn't QUITE like his other movies. The voice over is a lot of fun, especially later in the movie when it's used more sparsely, and above all the musical aside just hits the nail on the head--one of those uncanny moments when you didn't even realize the movie was missing something until it happened, and suddenly everything just seems right in the world.Definitely a movie, if any, to get into this director if you haven't, and if you have you'll certainly not be disappointed.--PolarisDiB

PaulyC Writer and Director Guy Maddin's interesting homage to silent films. It is about a man named Guy who returns to his childhood home on an abandoned island and asked to paint a lighthouse by his aging mother. As a child Guy was subject to his bizarre parents secret lives running the orphanage he grew up in. He unearths a strange world of disturbing science experiments and diabolical schemes. This movie gets weirder as it goes on. It was shot on 8mm film and that works well for the movie. It was written in about 5 weeks by director Maddin and filmed in much less time in Seattle. The actors are unknowns to the screen but I get the idea that they are all very theatrical trained stage actors. It is narrated beautifully by Isabella Rossellini and features a good musical score. It has a good look and feel and has a good pace but lacked something that I just can't put my finger on. Perhaps I expected to get in the head of Guy a little more. I had a better understanding of a lot of the other characters better then the leading man even with seeing the crazy life that he led. However, this film is worth a look for its uniqueness and style even if it's not the type of thing you may want to watch many times over.