THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD
Directed by: Guy Maddin.
Produced by: Niv Fichman & Jody Shapiro.
Written by: Guy Maddin & George Toles, based on an original screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Director of Photography: Luc Montpellier.
Edited by: David Wharnsby.
Music by: Christopher Dedrick.
Released by: IFC.
Country of Origin: Canada. 99 min. Not Rated.
With: Isabella Rossellini, Mark McKinney & Maria de Medeiros.

In the depths of the Depression, Lady Port-Huntly (Rossellini) takes to the radio airwaves and beckons the world to compete for the title of the world’s saddest country in Winnipeg, the world capital of sorrow. She presides over the event like a Roman Empress, giving the thumbs up or thumbs down. In the first round, musicians from Siam and Mexico go toe to toe. “Nobody beats the Siamese when it comes to dignity, cats, or twins,” gushes a radio commentator. Performing a ballad about a dead baby, the mariachis win and take the victory plunge into a vat of beer. “In a world competition, ordinary tears are not enough,” admonishes the announcer.

Although a double amputee, Lady Port-Huntly rules her brewery, the contest’s sponsor, like a lascivious Joan Collins crossed with a no-nonsense Barbara Stanwyck. She even has a pajama-clad boy toy at her beck and call. But the main story line involving Chester Kent (McKinney), a cocky down-on-his luck Broadway producer, bogs down this otherwise flighty film. Chester happens to be Lady Port-Huntly’s ex-lover and the one she blames for the loss of her legs. He sees her competition as his chance to regain glory by delivering American “sass and pizzazz.” Accompanying Chester is girlfriend and songbird Narcissa (de Medeiros). In the film’s center piece, she breaks into the Jerome Kern standard, “This Song is You,” and the entire town takes part. Although an affectionate send-up, it is also infectious. Unlike Chicago, this musical number is unapologetically corny, with no irony.

Saddest Music is a visual kaleidoscope of tinted or black-and-white images shot through a gauzy filter. Part camp parody, backstage musical, and B movie melodrama, not all of the elements jell. The latter, which includes the arrival of Chester’s raving father and estranged brother (once married to Narcissa), is nonsensical. Most of these scenes are glum and leaden. While McKinney, as Chester, is as wooden as any B actor from the early thirties, both de Medeiros and Rossellini seem human despite the plot’s artifice. Bathed in light, de Medeiros could easily pass as Marlene Dietrich in The Scarlet Empress.

Saddest Music is like a Saturday Night Live spoof that has a promising beginning, but doesn’t know how to end. It’s not nearly as engaging as director Maddin’s Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary, newly released on DVD. Essentially a silent film shot in Maddin’s singular visual style with a Mahler score performed by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Dracula is uniformly macabre and lyrical. Kent Turner
April 29, 2004