The credits rolled last night at 11:50 PM at the Sunshine on Houston Street in NYC.
Outside the theatre, I glanced up at the box office board: There was another viewing at 11:55 p.m. I impulsively bought another ticket and saw it again.
This is one of the funniest, most original and absurd movies I have ever seen. I feel like I can't believe I've actually seen it -- waking up dizzy at 2 PM today on a Saturday and pondering this movie.
All I remember is the wonderful music, the great one-liners, and those fanciful legs. Oh, for legs such as those!
Everyone must be forced to sit through this film as punishment for watching any television, ever.
Isabella Rossilini should be so proud of forging through the offers of banal roles and accepting roles such as this. It is not a surprise that the same actresss who allowed David Lynch to strip and bruise her in Blue Velvet would embrace such a role as Port-Huntley. If you're sad, and like beer, she's your woman!
The audience last night was howling with laughter and delight at the absurd and brilliant lines in this movie. There was so much to like about this spectacular musical.
But most of all, there were those intoxicating legs.
The Saddest Music in the World
2003
Action / Comedy / Musical
The Saddest Music in the World
2003
Action / Comedy / Musical
79% - Critics
79% - Audience
7.0Plot summary
It's the winter of 1933 in Winnipeg. In honor of Winnipeg being named the sorrow capital of the world for the Depression era for the fourth year running by the London Times, Lady Helen Port-Huntley, the legless owner of Winnipeg's Port-Huntley Beer, is hosting and judging a contest to see which nation has the saddest music in the world, the winner to take home a $25,000 prize. Seeing as to the current Prohibition in the United States, Lady Port-Huntley has ulterior motives for the contest. Father and son, streetcar conductor Fyodor Kent and New York based musical producer Chester Kent, who both have a past connection to Lady Port-Huntley (Fyodor, a WWI veteran and former doctor, has fashioned for her an unusual pair of artificial legs apropos to her business),want to represent Canada and the United States respectively in the contest. Despite Lady Port-Huntley's hatred for the Kent's, she does allow them to do so if only to advance her own priorities. As the contest takes place, the Kents, who also include Fyodor's other son/Chester's brother, Roderick Kent (who wants to represent Serbia in the contest, as his missing wife is Serbian),deal with their collective sorrow and family dysfunction, the latter issue which involves Chester's current girlfriend, an amnesiac named Narcissa.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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So funny I immediately bought another ticket
funny, original, intriguing.
Don't be scared away by people who warn that this movie is too difficult or bizarre. This film will appeal to more than just the usual cabal of obscurantists and nerdy cultists. The plot is quite straightforward: a depression-era beer baroness commissions a contest whose aim it is to find the saddest music in the world. As a result, scores of zany musicians from around the world descend on frost-bitten Winnipeg to win a $25000 prize. Hilarity ensues.
That's not to say the movie doesn't have its fair share of the absurd, the bizarre, and the dark (it *is* a Canadian film, after all). Lines are delivered with strange inflections, characters' motivations are screwy, filmic styles are mixed. None of these, however, comes off as pretentious or forced.
The film explores the interesting paradox that despite the reality and ubiquity of real sadness, authentic expressions of sadness are difficult and rare.
Beyond the Pale
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.