Rumours Review
With films like “Brand Upon the Brain!” and “My Winnipeg,” Guy Maddin creates pictures that are bursting with inventiveness, typically driven by what seem to be personal obsessions. “You should experience the work of Guy Maddin if you love movies in the sinews of your imagination,” Roger stated. I therefore approached his most recent film, the Cannes premiere of “Rumours,” with the anticipation that his earlier ground-breaking work had established.
With films like “Brand Upon the Brain!” and “My Winnipeg,” Guy Maddin creates pictures that are bursting with inventiveness, typically driven by what seem to be personal obsessions. “You should experience the work of Guy Maddin if you love movies in the very sinews of your imagination,” Roger stated. I then saw his most recent film, “Rumours,” which debuted at Cannes.
There are glimpses of the visually inspired Maddin that Roger suggested you “experience” more than “watch,” but this one feels a bit minor in his filmography to me. It’s still undeniably clever, buoyed by a great cast who knows what to do with this sharp satire of world politics, but it feels a bit like a lark. This movie is content with a chuckle instead of biting its teeth into some complex subject matter. To be fair, you’ll have more than one chuckle—the film is consistently, cleverly entertaining, and that’s all it needs to be, even if I wondered if the younger Maddin might have found a way to imbue it with more passion and creative vigour.
Writer Evan Johnson shares co-director credit with Maddin and Galen Johnson for this essentially confined tale of seven of the world’s most powerful leaders at the end of the world. The seven power players at the G7 conference go to a gazebo in the woods to hash out a statement on an undefined international crisis, only to discover that the chateau they thought they were staying at has been abandoned, and that’s just the start of the weirdness. There are ancient, zombie-like men who have emerged from the earth and a giant brain in the woods that I still don’t fully understand. I don’t think I’m supposed to. The bit, more or less, boils down to throwing incompetent leaders into a real crisis and watching how it explodes their failures of character and generally shallow manner of dealing with the world.
Maddin’s cast is one of his best to date, led by Cate Blanchett as Hilda Orlmann, the Chancellor of Germany. The most charismatic of the bunch—after all, it’s Cate Blanchett—Hilda knows how to smile through the right soundbite for the press and takes a leadership role when the night turns deadly. Funny enough, the real leader is the Canadian Prime Minister (Maddin, always loyal to his homeland), Maxime Laplace, whose sombre visage is so because he’s facing a cancellable crisis back at home that will likely force him to step down.
Impossibly beautiful and intriguing, Roy Dupuis nails the role. Most of the members of the G7 get their laughs, from Italy’s Antonio Lamorle (Rolando Ravello) having a seemingly inexhaustible supply of cured meats in his jacket to the world-weariness of the American President even being played by one of the most British men alive in Charles Dance. Denis Menochet is perfectly French, while Nikki Amuka-Bird and Takehiro Hira find more dignified registers as the British and Japanese delegates, respectively. Alicia Vikander appears in an extended cameo that I couldn’t really explain or spoil if I wanted to.
Roy Dupuis is stunningly gorgeous and captivating in the part. From Italy’s Antonio Lamorle (Rolando Ravello) carrying an apparently endless supply of preserved meats in his jacket to the fatigue of the American President, who is even portrayed by one of the most British men living in Charles Dance, the majority of the G7 members find amusement in this. Nikki Amuka-Bird and Takehiro Hira find more respectable registers as British and Japanese representatives, respectively, while Denis Menochet is a native French speaker. I couldn’t really explain or give away Alicia Vikander’s lengthy cameo if I wanted to.
“Rumours” occasionally resembles a cross between Armando Iannucci and David Lynch in examining political inefficiency against a backdrop of surreal impossibility. For extended periods, that mix can provide plenty of entertainment. There are moments when it seems as though Maddin and the team are stepping back a little from a better version of the movie, one that takes itself a little more seriously and goes harder after those who are clearly unfit to govern.
Ultimately, “Rumours” is about how power brokers become fixated on meaningless stuff as the world collapses. Their press pronouncements are more important to them than real change. We witness it in global politics daily as ideas and prayers are used instead of concrete action. Maddin and his associates have viewed this global predicament as foolishness worthy of ridicule, and they do it effectively. In what will undoubtedly be one of the most well-known productions of his career, a filmmaker Roger greatly liked has once again brought his vision to the big screen (Cate can do that). I’m hoping that “Rumours” will be popular enough to attract new admirers to the groundbreaking work that made him famous. Ultimately, Roger’s statement is still true: Few filmmakers obviously love movies as much as Guy Maddin,
