Guy Madden is Canada's answer to David Lynch and has created an often brilliant, though just as often, baffling filmography. One of his films which has stood out for me the most over the years is his wonderful 2004 feature, The Saddest Music in the World. It's a surreal, faded memory of a depression era contest organized by a beer baroness in Winnipeg to find the "saddest music in the world". The contest is organized 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. The competition and its $25,000 prize draw contestants from all over the world who enter into an Olympics style set of elimination rounds to inflict the most morose melodies upon their audience. The film stars the fabulous Isabella Rossellini as the glass-legged baroness and Kids in the Hall alumnus, Mark McKinney, as her nefarious love interest. The film is shot to look like a period piece of the 1930s, grainy and worn and the musical machinations which run afoul during the contest lead to great conflict and controversy. It's all incredibly strange and run through with a morose sense of humor.
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