The bladder-slapping magic of “The Forbidden Room”

Cinema | December 25th, 2015

Global treasure Guy Maddin detonates a cinematic depth charge in “The Forbidden Room,” a stunning cascade of images so gorgeous you might think you’ve stumbled upon some long-lost Yma Sumac record sleeve photo shoot leftovers as lensed by Willy Hameister. Bearing all the filmmaker’s signature stylistic fetishes and then some, “The Forbidden Room” was co-directed by Evan Johnson, who also co-scripted along with Maddin and Robert Kotyk. Additional, hilarious “How to Take a Bath” material was provided by legendary surrealist poet John Ashbery. Multiple critics have already compared the movie’s interlocking chain of wild tales to a set of matryoshka nesting dolls, but the effect is most akin to the ways we experience dreams, vaulting from one inexplicable set of circumstances to the next.

Design aficionados will drool at the film’s meticulously crafted intertitles and production design by Evan’s brother Galen Johnson. Johnson’s stunning cards are routinely inserted to introduce character names/cast members, helpfully supplying informational updates because so many actors inhabit multiple roles. In one delightful example, Caroline Dhavernas’ Gong is introduced with “Young and beautiful – like many of her kind, thirsty for more than her share of the world's breathing gas – out gulping some down now!” Also quoting poetry and providing emotional interjections (Bones! Bones! Bones!), the titles and their dazzling typography are every bit as essential as the humans who appear in “The Forbidden Room.”

Following the less successful “Keyhole,” “The Forbidden Room” makes use of several Maddin regulars, including Louis Negin and Udo Kier. High-profile performers like Charlotte Rampling and Mathieu Amalric also join the Maddin circus, along with a tremendous Clara Furey in the crucial role(s) of mysterious Margot. Many of the filmmaker’s longstanding obsessions swirl and churn: dead fathers, posterior preoccupations, sibling-linked love triangles, and an alarming rate of amnesiacs compete for attention. Bizarre contests of mettle and fortitude, another Maddin treat, arrive in a riotous showdown that sees a “saplingjack” prove himself by offal piling and bladder slapping.

Maddin admirers old and new will have a field day selecting their favorite vignettes from a practically bottomless supply of cranial confectionery. Negin’s quips and come-ons regarding the virtues of bathing will have you reaching for the Mr. Bubble. Life-giving oxygenated flapjacks sustain a quartet of submariners caught in the ultimate bind: if they surface, their cargo of blasting jelly will explode; if they remain underwater, the air supply will run out. A volcanic virgin sacrifice is interrupted by an unexpected parachutist. Undulating women skeletons double as insurance defrauders. And under no circumstances should the Aswang bananas, a pair of herbaceous vampires, be overlooked.

In his essay on “Brand upon the Brain!” Dennis Lim wrote, “Increasingly [Maddin] comes across less as a fusty antiquarian than a mad scientist, applying shock paddles to dead cinematic languages.” That observation is as true as ever applied to the filmmaker’s current work, which includes the eagerly anticipated “Seances” project. For now, “The Forbidden Room” is as beautiful as anything Maddin has ever shared. The film’s relentlessly inventive combination of old and new techniques stimulates the senses by suggesting a rediscovery of some mothballed nitrate, catching fire before our eyes.

“The Forbidden Room” is now available on Fandor.

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