The Saddest Music in the World Critic Reviews

The concept is high, the humor lowbrow and the joy of experimentation evident in every frame of this wonderful picture. Read the full review

Hard to say who's luckier -- those who have seen the work of Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin before and know what to expect, or those who haven't and for whom The Saddest Music in the World serves as an eye-popping introduction.Read the full review

It's all terribly tortured, often laugh-out-loud, absurdly funny and, as with all of Maddin's movies, conveyed through images that are as lush and beautifully over the top as the story's emotions.Read the full review

The effect is strange and delightful; somehow the style lends quasi-credibility to a story that is entirely preposterous.Read the full review

Maddin's movies are easy, too. Point your eyes at the screen; the magic follows.Read the full review

Like most great musicals, though, this one slides, with breathtaking ease, from silliness to pathos and freely mixes exquisiteness and absurdity.Read the full review

Almost as much an art piece as a film, this playful Prohibition-era tale is visually inventive and initially amusing but, at feature length, becomes somewhat wearing in its cacophonous eccentricity.Read the full review

Maddin films have a higher rate of invention per frame than the majority of his peers can muster.Read the full review

This exercise in style and tongue-in-cheek melodrama from Canada's iconoclastic Guy Maddin will be lionized by admirers for its audacity, but will wear thin for many audience members, who will find it tedious and repetitive.Read the full review