Cate Blanchett’s political zombie comedy swiftly descends into chaos

RUMOURS ★★★

(M) 104 minutes

Rumours’ creator, Canadian director Guy Maddin, has been cultivating his reputation for extreme wackiness since the 1980s. Based in Winnipeg, which he has fondly lampooned in a quasi-biographical mockumentary as the sleepiest town in Canada, and possibly the world, he’s concentrated mainly on short films. Their surrealistic tilts at anything and everything have made him a great favourite on the festival circuit. But the mainstream has eluded him – if he ever felt like plunging into it, which is doubtful.

Except for Isabella Rossellini, who’s joined him as an enthusiastic collaborator, he’s never cast big-name actors – until now. Rumours has a starry ensemble cast led by Cate Blanchett, Charles Dance and Alicia Vikander, all of whom have become gleefully infected with the Maddin brand of madness. It’s the kind of film where the ability to keep a straight face qualifies as consummate acting.

What’s more, Maddin joined up with two like-minded filmmaking brothers, Evan and Galen Johnson, a decade ago and the three share the directing credit on the film. Confusing? Absolutely. Yet, they recommend it as the kind of confusion that enhances the state of upheaval in which they like to work.

The story is set at a G7 conference held at a castle on the edge of a misty German forest looking as if it could house European folklore’s worst nightmares. And it doesn’t take long to prove itself.

While the score resonates with intimations of doom, the leaders pose for the media before their unflappable host – BIanchett’s Hilda Ortmann, the German chancellor – declares she has a treat for them. She then ushers them into the woods to view a newly unearthed Iron Age corpse so immaculately preserved in a mud bath, they can see that the body was buried with its severed penis tied around its neck.

After this appetiser, we go on to dinner in the castle’s forest gazebo, where things swiftly descend into chaos. The Canadian prime minister gets spectacularly drunk while the other leaders try to draft a communique dealing forcefully with a looming world crisis. What kind of crisis? We never find out because the waffle they produce never gets to grips with it.

Nor is it funny waffle. Although the script is aiming to mine some high-grade nonsense out of this promising scenario, it’s not up to the job, no matter how bizarre it gets. Before the night is out, the Bog Man and friends undergo a zombie-like revival and threaten to attack, and in an even weirder development, a giant brain is discovered sitting beside a forest path.

The brain could be a metaphor for the powers of AI. Or not. Maddin is so intent on not making sense that any attempt to discern something remotely resembling a theme is fated to fail. The only certainty is that the world’s leaders are chronic procrastinators churning out irrelevancies while the world burns. And unfortunately, the cynics among us knew that already.

Rumours opens in cinemas on December 5.

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