With each movie, Guy Madden goes back in time. His previous one,
“The Saddest
Music in the World” was in the style of a 1930s musical, and
this one is a
silent picture, and in order to see it properly, one must shell
out forty bucks
per person to see it with a live orchestra, live foley artists,
and Isabella
Rosalini narrating.
I missed it twice and had to see it the wrong way, in a
screening room with a
pre-recorded soundtrack. Still it's something that's rather
impressive in a
completely perverse way, and is worth seeing because it's an
incredibly
different experience, which is the job of cinema to provide
after all.
Madden has the film start with an actor playing himself(Erik
Steffen Maahs)
rowing a boat to a craggy island somewhere in the Pacific
northwest, where
after decades of silence, his mother(Susan Corzatte) has
contacted him. She wants
him to return home and paint the old lighthouse before she dies
of old age.
The island is full of memories, of days gone by when his parents
(Todd Moore
and Gretchen Krich) ran an orphanage there in order to
supplement Dad's income
as a mad scientist. Mother ran the place with an iron fist,
especially when
it came to the doings of Guy's sister (Maya Lawson), who, when
the sad events
depicted in the movie took place, was a nubile nymphet. Young
Guy(Sullivan
Brown) is in a better situation, but still has to remain in
touch with mom via an
antique version of a cel phone at all times.
But all is not well, and in comes Wendy Hale(Katherine E.
Scharhon), teen
detective in the tradition of Tom Swift and Nancy Drew, who is
investigating
strange holes in the heads of recently adopted orphans. In order
to be less
conspicuous, she takes the identity of her brother Chance, and
this leads to some
lesbian romance. The whole thing gets weirder and weirder as the
plot thickens
to the texture of mud.
If you cannot see the live version, you may want to see the
recorded version,
which is less impressive and if you do be sure to imbibe illegal
intoxicants.
It will most definitely help.
Richard E. Schiff
Richard E. Schiff
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