The Saddest Music in the World (2004)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Sadly Over-hyped

Excellent, a Must See

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

There are times when I haven't got anything witty to say about a film. I leave this one with the result of having seen something totally unique. I mean, put this one in a genre. Since I didn't really care if they ever found out what the saddest music in the world was (no matter what; it would be a disappointment), I found myself seeing a grouping of bizarre characters and enjoying them as if it were a kind of freak show. I don't even mean that in a judgmental sense. It had that David Lynch nightmare quality. Whatever transpired transpired. If one is looking for closure, I guess there is a kind of disastrous entropy here. Suffice it to say, when one has so much sadness, the movie becomes the saddest music in the world; life becomes the saddest music in the world. This is certainly worth a look. The cinematography is amazing and that's probably enough.

What makes this movie such a wretched experience to sit through is that the director obviously hates music, or at least hates the musicians and music lovers who people the profession. Why else would he keep interrupting perfectly good musical performances with buzzers, inane, insipid voiceovers, and stupid visuals -- and a plot that moves, well, nowhere? If you happen to like music, as I do, and not just think of it as a background part of your life, you're sure to be thoroughly annoyed by this idiotic outing. There ARE good Canadian movies out there, but this isn't one of them. One of the two stars I've given it is for the interesting use of faux disintegrating film black-and-white images throughout (if it were furniture, we'd called it stressed), but that by no means could save this dud.

I'll be honest, I loved this movie. That being said, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone or even anyone but a few arcane film technique fetishists. The movie has the feel of a lost classic, but it's so damn goofy that it's hard to figure out where it's coming from much less where it's trying to take you. People who watch expressionist films will understand the technique of "just going with it" and seeing how you feel at the end.Maybe that's Maddlin's flaw? He forgets that modern audiences are always checking in with themselves and questioning the images they see always ready to click away from content they dislike. My friend walked out of "Coffee and Cigarettes" after the second episode, he'd given it a fair shake and didn't see any chance of it improving. But it did. Oh man it did. He would have been rewarded if he would have just went with it for a bit.So admittedly, I was confused and alienated by big stretches of The Saddest Music In The World. It's true the characters are too ridiculous to care about much and the dissociative camera work does as much to take you out of the scene as put you in. And the brilliant Two-stripped color scenes are so bright and vibrant that the mono-tinted and black and white scenes that follow them don't have much punch. On the whole it pastiche's together more styles than a single movie should: expressionism, musical, silent, early talkie, early color, comedy, even some very documentary looking montages recalling the earliest documentaries. And the sound was as poorly mixed as any major film release i've ever seen. The film's message is obscured in it's own aesthetics so thoroughly that one can scarcely get a footing on anything like meaning or message.I could go on and on about the flaws of this movie. As for it's graces? its genuinely funny in parts, original in others, it feels like an old distressed classic which is fun for buffs like me. But all this is cursory.So why the hell did I like this movie so much? I liked it an awful lot. I liked it because it's messed up and it's messy. It seemed to be having fun throughout most of it and if you give yourself over to: stop asking sensible questions and try to have some fun, because really-if you do that you'll have a blast at this movie.

I think that it is one of my favorite films. The only reason why I even considered the idea of not giving maximum points for the movie was the fact that the movie contained alcohol propaganda :D I had no idea what the movie is about so at the beginning I was stunned and wondered if I entered the right room - the old-school style sure was surprising. As I had dug myself into the movie I was enchanted... It gently delt emotional and brutal violence. The action froze me - during the whole movie I felt this buzz in my head and incapability to decide if i should laugh or cry. I would say that in the center of the whole story is not the competition but the desperate need to feel sadness - all the main characters had experienced something traumatic that made them feel detached of the world and realistic valuation on emotions. I definitely recommend it to everybody who appreciates movies that are more than just plain amusement!