Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg (2007) seemed to show a divergence in the director’s work — it is more polished and larger in scope than his previous films, with a reliance on craftier documentary-like techniques. Though much darker and nightmarish than My Winnipeg, Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain! (2006) is no less haunting, and often hilarious. Brand! serves as a perfect intro to the director’s work, with his characteristic techniques — a rushed yet assured camera, title card cues, Oedipal drama and uniquely beautiful use of black-and-white cinematography.

The film opens with Guy (Erik Steffen Maahs) returning to the small island he once called home. His mother (Gretchen Krich) has asked him to return to the old family home, a lighthouse, and give it “two good coats” of paint — she wants to give it some small measure of elegance before she dies. As Guy begins to slap the paintbrush against the old, crumbling walls, his mind races back to a childhood spent roaming the island, which was once an orphanage run by Guy’s domineering mother and mad scientist father (Todd Moore). Mother constantly spies on Guy and his older sister (Maya Lawson), barking orders through a series of ancient “aerophones” scattered across the island.

There are mysterious things happening on the island: the orphans are sporting strange scars on the backs of their heads, and people are starting to wonder what father is building in the basement. Enter the “Lightbulb Twins,” a teen detective duo in the Bobsey Twins vein. Well, half of the duo — Wendy (Katherine Scharhon) is in disguise as her brother Chance (it’s easier to skulk around the island unaccompanied if everyone thinks she’s a he).

Love, horror and tragedy all begin to spin out of control, as Guy’s scattered memories begin to pile upon one another. Isabella Rosselini narrates the proceedings, set to a score alternately elegiac and ecstatic, speeding the narrative forward. Past and present begin to merge, and the film races towards its startling and abrubt ending.

Brand! is Maddin at his expressionistic best, a mash-up of Caligari and Canadiana. Though Criterion released the film on DVD last year, everyone should take the opportunity to see this one on the big screen — particularly with Maddin himself providing an introduction at the screening.