He's probably the only successful director against whom David Lynch or the late Ken Russell would be judged conservatively sober practitioners of the art.

In his latest celluloid fever dream, Guy Maddin seeks to rework Homer's Odyssey with a lantern-jawed American hoodlum (Patric) in the Odysseus role, seeking to literally unlock the secrets of the past.

What makes this version that little bit different is that it is set in the hero's childhood home...and he drags behind him a drowned clairvoyant woman and a naked man strapped onto a swivel chair.

While he's been out on some vague errand, the domestic fort has been held by his squabbling mobsters, who have found the time to fashion a homemade electric chair. We'll see more of that later.

As Ulysses works his way through the house one room at a time, he's assailed by spectres while weird vignettes unfold in the other rooms - up in the attic his naked uncle Udo Kier is rattling around in chains and his wife Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini) entertains the sinister Chan.

Maddin is probably the most Marmite director working today, with the only constants being his films are black and white, normally silent and - to mainstream audiences - certifiable.

Yet they're always watchable - the cinematography and inventive scores are always accomplished and there's no denying the method in his considerable madness.

Tim Evans