Dktr Faustenstein
What began online as a series of shorts inspired by the titles of long lost movies — a dreamy undertaking Guy Maddin-christened Seances — has been bound together in a vivid 130-minute gallimaufry. The Forbidden Room is like a cinematic version of The Decameron, with at least a dozen stories emerging between explanatory intertitles and elegantly executed fart jokes. But it’s beautiful — Maddin’s visual tributes to filmmaking truly reach epic proportions, here — and funny. After a short educational interlude on How to Take a Bath, we find a desperate crew in an oxygen-deprived submarine. As they huff H20 out of flapjacks, a woodsman falls out of their cargo hold. His tale takes him to the cave of the terrible Red Wolves, who have kidnapped the dark-eyed ingénue. After he undergoes terrible trials — offal-piling, finger-snapping, stone-weighing (yes, those stones), and sheep’s bladder slapping (insert fart joke here) — the ingenue inexplicably drifts into a dream.. Vampire bananas and virgin sacrifices ensue. Taken as a whole, The Forbidden Room might be too much of a good thing but if you can relax into the art-house kaleidoscope, you’re in for a beautiful, wild ride. For Saturday’s screening, Maddin will appear via Skype.
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