The Saddest Music in the World

“"If you're sad, and like beer, I'm your lady."”

Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) is a beer baroness in Depression-era Winnipeg, a woman with no legs and a contest to announce. She offers $25,000 to whoever brings her the saddest music in the world, and musicians arrive to compete, among them Chester Kent (Mark McKinney). Guy Maddin sets Chester and Narcissa (Maria de Medeios) in the same crowded hall, and the film keeps asking what hurt has passed between them.