RUMOURS
***
Directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson & Galen Johnson.
Starring Cate Blanchett, Charles Dance, Denis Mènochet.
Comedy, Canada & Germany, 104 minutes, Certificate 15.
Released in cinemas in the UK by Universal on December 6th
The strangeness of Guy Maddin, and regular directing collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson is further exacerbated by watching their latest collaboration at a multiplex cinema chain. For his first full length feature in over a decade, the surrealist arthouse auteur has returned with a cast of familiar faces for this apocalyptic satire with a major studio backing its release. Longtime fans will no doubt rejoice at his return but newcomers may find themselves completely befuddled by its arch tone mixed with horror undertones and downright silliness.
Cate Blanchett, with comedy accent, plays Hilda, the German Chancellor presiding over the G7 summit, attempting to draft a statement regarding an unnamed and unexplained ongoing crisis with her fellow world leaders. Underneath the niceties and loose camaraderie, needling and undercutting comments are traded underneath an idyllic gazebo. As the hours pass by it soon becomes apparent that another possible crisis may have occurred as the servants seem to have vanished, mobile phone signals drop out and recently uncovered bog bodies are soon spotted wandering around the woods behaving in a very inappropriate manner.
Madden and the Johnson brothers have no interest in explaining the how or the why of what is happening here, focusing instead on skewering the vapid nature and posturing of politicians with thinly veiled jabs at current political leaders. Whether it is the constant sleepiness of the US President, played by Charles Dance using his own very English accent (also unexplained) or Nikki Amuka-Bird’s British Prime Minister who has designs on joining the private sector after her tenure comes to an end, the films satirical element is on full display. Throughout all of this is a deadpan undercurrent that sways from melodramatic soap-opera like lurches into romance then into surreal horror. And all of this before we get to the giant brain sitting in the middle of the forest.
As noted before there is an arch tone throughout that suggests everyone involved was very pleased with themselves whilst making it. That sense of pleasure may fail to travel across to an audience not attuned to the creative team's various idiosyncrasies. However, halfway through the satire begins to land more successfully as other factors come into play, displaying how useless these so-called leaders are at handling a crisis, whether together or on their own. This contempt, on scathing display by the film's closing scenes, fully brings into focus the bare faced disregard of politicians who can toss out empty platitudes about how to save the world in a form of empty double-speak that placates no-one but themselves.
There is a lot of stuff packed in here to mull over. Aside from the surreal comedy and undead shenanigans there are allusions to William Burroughs, Neil Young, AI, societal breakdown and global collapse. Parts of it may land more successfully than others and there is a real flatness of style, which is a real surprise from Maddin considering his previous black and white exercises in style. The oddness, which may be off-putting to some, coalesces into something of real substance that is as darkly satisfying as Maddin and the Evans brothers previous works.
Iain MacLeod
