This essay contains spoilers. Be forewarned.
My relationship to Canadian film is at best a disconnected one. Not living in a major city or a place where they would have adequate visibility, my idea of Canada's cinematic identity growing up was informed by mainly magazines and T.V. showings of classic Canadian films on regional broadcasters (and by that, I mean I saw them in T.V. listings, never watching the movies themselves). Basically nature, heavy human drama, and many sorts of things no American studio would release.
Isabella Rossellini as Lady Helen Port-Huntley
Mark McKinney as Chester Kent
David Fox as Fyodor Kent
Ross McMillan as Roderick Kent (a.k.a. "Gavrilo the Great")
Maria de Medeiros as Narcissa
While Canadian films made wholly in the country had the benefit of actors who worked on both sides of the border (Graham Greene, Wendy Crewson, Colm Feore), or an occasional starring role by a Hollywood star, even my introverted ten-year-old self took notice when Maclean's May 3, 2004 issue featured a great article with director Guy Maddin and the star of his then-latest film, Isabella Rossellini.
"Listen to the sounds of Winnipeg."
The original ASMR.
Rossellini is Lady Helen Port-Huntley, a beer heiress in 1933 Winnipeg who organizes a publicity-driven contest to see which country has "the saddest music in the world", attracting countless participants, three of them from the same torn-apart Canadian family.
Slimy Broadway producer Chester Kent (McKinney) arrives with nymphomaniac girlfriend Narcissa (de Medeiros) in hopes of using the prize money to finance his latest show. His father Fyodor (Fox), a depressed alcoholic tormented by the accident that led to the amputation of both of Helen's legs (long story, but you will laugh a little), is energized to enter the contest, while also formulating a plan to win Helen back. Fyodor's son (and Chester's brother) Roderick (McMillan) also enters the contest as "Gavrilo the Great", his Serbian persona adopted after the death of his son and the disappearance of his wife.
Roderick's backstory is the saddest of all, but his intentionally-dour characterization
brings out the humor in a cinematic style not known for deep characters.
Of course, you won't read me complaining.
With performances pitched to a slightly-cartoon, melodramatic tone, but never working against each other, Saddest Music really does feel like one is watching a film from an older time, albeit with some things not even a Pre-Code film would allow.
Ahem.
I too initially thought Kids in the Hall alum McKinney was an odd choice for this sort of movie.
Then I remembered how well he'd always fit whenever that show did old-style parodies.
Fox brings such an earnest, sympathetic, down-to-earth (for this film anyway),
human quality to Fyodor that I genuinely felt sad when his character died.
Despite Lady Port-Huntley being just as unethical as Chester,
Rossellini is so arresting and magnetic that we still root for and feel for her.
One might be reminded of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), in terms of people driven to desperation in an absurd (and rigged) competition. While Saddest Music's participants aren't starving or portrayed as deeply human as that film's characters, the role of the Great Depression and how it "threw" different people together is a driving force in the film's "collision" of elements.
Special credit should be given to the numerous musicians
playing the film's various contestants.
THE ROLE OF REGIONALISM (AND THE "CANADIAN IDENTITY")
Kazuo Ishiguro's original 1985 script set the action in London on the eve of Perestroika, with the contest encouraging free market capitalism and participation of countries behind the Iron Curtain. With Maddin and George Toles' rewrite setting things to 1933 Winnipeg, one can sense a feel of bumping up against the ironic double edge of representation and the idea of Canada supposedly having a lack of unique cultural identity.
Other than, of course, snow, snow, and more snow.
Despite being a younger Canadian raised in the "post-multicultural" era and perhaps not understanding more about this approach than most American viewers, I've picked up on enough cultural regional quirks, attitudes, histories, and debates that allowed me to contextualize at least some of what Maddin and Toles were trying to say with these changes.
Lady Port-Huntley puts herself top, front, and center as a
Canada-free Lady Liberty.
The big "sleeping elephant" in Saddest Music's room is, of course, the role, presence, and influence of American culture in Canadian life. Lady Port-Huntley plans to exploit the end of Prohibition in America through her own capitalistic means, Chester has abandoned his Canadian identity entirely and lies to several contest competitors in order for them to join his "American" team, Roderick has also abandoned his Canadian roots in favor of his new Serbian persona to fit his sadness, and Fyodor's desperate clinging to his Canadian identity involves adopting stereotypical traits (i.e. a love of beer) and wearing his WWI army uniform (a small detail perhaps, but full of associations if you know about Canada's role and cultural "evolution" in and after the war). And that's not even scratching the surface of the American factor (For more, see the link to David Church's essay under "Tidbits and Such" below.)
And more anecdotally, the choice of setting the story in Winnipeg works on another level for me as a Canadian.
And not just because I hate the cold.
Provincial regional humor is rife in Canadian satire, seeing as Canada is a vast, but divided country in endless ways. British Columbians make fun of Alberta, the West makes fun of the Prairies, everyone makes fun of Toronto and Quebec...
Maddin's view of Winnipeg is certainly a loving one, but still echoes other natives' sentiments that while they are proud of where they came from, prairie winters are infamously bitter and isolation is common, and with Winnipeg basically being the center of Canada's "Dust Bowl", it makes for a fitting epicenter for a plot where sadness and loneliness converge with desperation and dissonant calm.
Not to mention falling back into old, destructive habits.
Judging from the plot, you know this won't end well...
THE STUFF OF DREAMS (AND "THE DIRTY THIRTIES")
The bread and butter of Saddest Music is of course, the dazzling visuals created by Maddin and cinematographer Luc Montpellier. I especially loved the switches over to the look of two-strip Technicolor (a look that's criminally under-emulated today), as well as the sparkling new glass legs of Lady Port-Huntley. To say that these screencaps do not do the whole film justice would be a vast understatement.
TIDBITS AND SUCH
In 2005, Rossellini reteamed with director Maddin for the 17-minute short film My Dad is 100 Years Old, where she played every role, including father Roberto and mother Ingrid Bergman (above), though personally, I see more of Ingrid when Rossellini plays Federico Fellini (below). Must be the squint.
Brian D. Johnson's 2004 article from Maclean's can be read here.
Daniel Garrett examines Saddest Music's place in Canadian cinema here.
David Church delves deeper into Saddest Music's cultural satire and commentary here.
GoreGirl's Dungeon's review of Saddest Music can be read here.
Director Maddin reflects on Saddest Music and other films here.
What constitutes a "Canadian" film may be up for a lively (if not at the forefront) cultural debate, but whatever preconceptions you may have about Canadian cinema, The Saddest Music in the World will challenge them, and then some.
Copyright © Chynna Moore
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