This is a treat for fans of truly eclectic cinema. The rarely screened
Careful (1992) is fortuitously timed to rejuvenate those who, after the end of the
Winter Olympics, are pining for a further dose of shenanigans in snowy Canadian mountains. One of
Guy Maddin's earliest features, it established his
ultra-
disctinctive visual style of tinted, flickering,
faux-
German Expressionism. A homage to the "
Mountain Films" of the 1920s, the film tells the story of a quiet mountain village, existing in perpetual danger of a catastrophic avalanche. This threat permeates every aspect of the villager's lives, forcing them to tiptoe and whisper. This oasis of calm and silence is, of course, only the surface covering to a seething underbelly of bonkers depravity -- suicide, incestuous dreams and a cruel headmistress at the School for Butlers. Paired with
Maddin's
best-known film,
The Saddest Music In The World (2004), which emulates Depression era "get-rich-quick"
contests (
a la They Shoot Horses Don't They?), with
Isabella Rossellini as a beer baron who, equipped with lager-filled glass legs after losing both her legs in a freak accident, decides to stage an international contest to discover "the saddest music in the world".