Nobody makes films like Guy Maddin.

They did, but that was 100 years ago and their best work is behind them.

In The Forbidden Room, Maddin continues his fascination with a bygone era of filmmaking, using silent era title cards and film reel to new affect.

This is Maddin’s funniest film to date – it’s laugh out loud funny.

Anyone who has seen his hypnotic masterpiece My Winnipeg will appreciate his gift for poetic language but here he uses his rich language for humour rather than profundity.

Having previously worked with Isabella Rossellini in The Saddest Music In The World, Maddin once again can call upon the finest European actors with cameos from Charlotte Rampling and Mathieu Amalric and plenty of that most characterful of Germanic faces Udo Kier.

The film fizzles and crackles with ideas, multi-story stands, dreams within stories within reminisces, life-giving flapjacks, dreaming volcanoes and finger snapping duels. All human life is here.

If anything there’s too much going on.

It will take me multiple watches to decide whether it amounts to a greater thematic whole beyond a love of storytelling and dreams.

Either way this is a wonderfully charming and unique film ahead of its time - or should that be behind its time.

Four stars