FEVERISH, ABSTRACT “KEYHOLE”

FEVERISH, ABSTRACT “KEYHOLE”

It would seem, at first thought, that nostalgia and abstraction would fit together naturally in the halls of recollection. Why couldn’t vaguely strung-together abstractions easily match nostalgia’s lack of interest in accuracy?

“Keyhole,” the newest entry from Canada’s rabidly non-conformist Guy Madden (“the Saddest Music in the World,” “Cowards Bend the Knee’”) is now playing at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd. “Keyhole” is the Loft’s current Cinema Nocturna entry, shot in black-and-white so Madden can take the German expressionist fascination with film noir to remarkable heights of haunting design.

Every crime movie from the 1930s and 1940s feels reflected in this rush of imagery Madden brings to the screen. Talk about 50 shades of grey.

The filmmaker doubles that, at least, to tell in the abstract a tale that feels more like a fever dream of regrets from childhood, adulthood and parenthood stirred with sexual fantasies that would never be allowed in the house.

Jason Patric is compelling as Ulysses Pick, a modern man whose life of selfish compulsions has led him into a catacomb of lost causes symbolized in this dimly lit and nightmarish house full of twisted hallways lined with closed doors set on distorted angles.

All these doors hide secrets, it seems, though some contain keyholes through which the ever-harried Ulysses can kneel down to discover a certain amount of bitter truth.

Also in the film are Isabella Rossellini as Hyacinth, a distracted woman separated from Ulysses to mourn her three dead children; Louis Negin playing Hyacinth’s upset father, kept chained to Hyacinth’s bed; Udo Kier as the game-changing Dr. Lemke, a symbolic role, to be sure.

All are sad, believing life is something that only happens to other people, while their own personal experiences are filled with more obstacles than opportunities. And with a note of absolute truth, all of them blame someone else for their problems.

Rather than having an actual plot, “Keyhole” offers more of a suggestion that in this large and crumbling house are several detached people who exist only to provide metaphors meant mostly for the audience.

Ulysses searches for Hyacinth, getting into lots of crime-related scrapes along the way played by a large cast of unknowns who don’t talk much.

Most engaging are the camera angles exaggerating the corners and shadows of the creaking house, creating those expressionist statements that feel like nostalgic noir.

In a movie where nothing makes any “sense” in a linear sense of the word, where the atmosphere feels as much like David Lynch and “Eraserhead” as it feels like Sam Fuller’s “Shock Corridor,” the most enjoyable way to enjoy “Keyhole” is to approach it as stoner noir.

Or as David Byrne insisted, “Stop making sense.”