My Winnipeg (2008)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It has been a few years since I had a binge on Guy Maddin films. I think I heard of him around the time he did Dracula and then I made an effort to catch his short films at festivals etc. I knew for some time that he had made several films since the last time I watched his work but it took me a while to get around to them. This film was my starting point to catch up a little and it seemed to be a good choice as it mixes humor with tragedy, words with images and truth with complete fiction. The film sees Maddin traveling back to his hometown on Winnipeg on the train, lost in a dream state of memory and commentary.The film presents itself as a documentary and indeed there are some facts in there if you look (and with some stories you will go online afterwards to check if they are real or not) but mostly this is one flight of fancy where nuggets of personal and town history are expanded and exaggerated to create a world much more interesting than it would have been. The presentation of it though suggests no such thing and there is never the suggestion that it is done as a mockumentary or as a joke, it keeps a genuineness about it throughout that is engaging and charming. Maddin narrates the film and sounds a little like the calm presence that Michael Moore used to be in his film; his presence is welcome because it reminds us that under everything is that core of truth, whether it be in the family recollections or the actual history of the town. The lines are blurred constantly though but this is part of the film's appeal – it is a fantasy and it is really fun to go with it and believe it while it is being told.The scenes recreating scenes from his childhood are good but the tales of the wider town are much more fun – tales of a dark network of streets, of lovers visiting the frozen horse heads after a local tragedy etc, they have real color and vividness to the words that it is almost cruel to find they are mostly only true in the smallest detail. Maddin's visual style helps because you can never be sure what is stock footage and what is not, and the imagination in the visuals match the flights of the words themselves. As always it is not the most accessible of films and some might be annoyed by its lack of facts, but fans will enjoy it a lot because it is another great visual and imaginative feast from Maddin.

It's so hard to write about a Guy Maddin film. What exactly do I describe, what do I say about the film? His films defy convention in every way imaginable. I can guarantee that there is no film out there that's even especially similar to "My Winnipeg" in style or content, even if Maddin's current style is essentially a pastiche of a particular sort of silent film, there are none that are edited in the same way or used to quite the same effect as Maddin's films are. At least none that I have seen, as Maddin is not imitating anyone, but making films in a style that is not used anymore, and had he been making films in the 1920's he might have been considered an innovator. "My Winnipeg" is a film I wish I was clever enough to make about any of the cities I've lived in and fallen in love with, and is original enough to captivating, but is also astonishingly clever and witty and funny and entertaining.I was actually not a big fan of Maddin's last film, "Brand Upon the Brain!", a pleasant enough film but ultimately of no real worth or substance, merely a visually interesting retread of themes Maddin fans are familiar with. It was certainly a far cry from some of his better work- "Archangel" and "Careful" being my favorites. Maddin is certainly one of my favorite Canadian directors, and one of our few genuine auteurs whose work is actually accessible and available relatively easily, but there's always been an issue with his films, even his better work, the issue being that his films often feel rather insubstantial. Like the bizarre and amusing experiments of an eccentric than anything of real value (although obviously that is debatable). I always enjoy a Guy Maddin film, but I think "My Winnipeg" is the first of his which struck me as truly passionate or exceptional with regard to its content."My Winnipeg" tells you everything you need to know about it in the title. This is Guy Maddin's love/hate letter to his home town of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and it's really about HIS Winnipeg, and it's the sort of personal thing that could have so easily been a bore, but Guy Maddin is so interesting that his own perception of Winnipeg is enough to sustain this 80 minute film. It flies by, leaving the viewer in an appreciative daze by the end, appreciative of the remarkable sense of humor in the film, the wit, the cleverness of the narrative, and a real sense of Maddin's love and passion for Winnipeg. This film has everything that is appealing about Maddin's work as well as a new richness that he'd never quite found before. It's an oddly inspiring film, gorgeous to look at and rather unexpectedly the funniest film I've seen from 2008 as well.

Wittgenstein once observed, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". It should follow on from this wearied maxim that all true art is destined to be personal. Such a truth is evident when watching Guy Maddin's "My Winnipeg". Apparently inspired by the film he shot of Isabella Rossellini remembering her father, "My Dad Is 100 Years Old" (2005) (a documentary of memories - a hyper-documentary? - rather than realities), with "My Winnipeg" Maddin cine-alchemically recreates the patchwork quilt of his life and history of his city, indelibly stained with Winnipegian fluids and woven with Manitoban heart-fibres.Influences become clear as never before, Maddin's ambisexuality is on display (1995s Sissy Slap Boy Party now makes sense), "La Roue" (1923/Abel Gance) is revealed as his cinematic touchstone (following on from the quotation in "Odilon Redon - or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity", also 1995). The movie is almost like a coming out, a cry of freedom, a love letter to all he holds dear, ice hockey, Winnipeg, silent cinema, sexuality, proletarian utopias, family memories. It reminded me of the words of a Portugese man on TV when describing the Carnation Revolution of 1974, where armed forces were conquered by ordinary people wielding carnations, he called it a "giant national orgasm". "My Winnipeg" is Guy Maddin's heart nailed to the screen, as fiercely courageous a movie as you will ever see.There are blue truths in the film, we're not spared his mother's genitalia or fever dreams of childhood sexuality. Here are some quotations from interviews Maddin gave for this film just so you know what you will be seeing: "Children are sexual beings, just think of your own childhood. In my case, I was far more sexual as a child than I am now" "Nothing bothers me more than a movie about the innocence of children! What are they innocent of? They might be innocent of murder, but that's about it! Children haven't learned to repress yet or anything like that. They're just teeming with wonderful luridity, from very early on!" There is something universal about the film, Maddin incants a litany of opprobrium and indignity that the city of Winnipeg has suffered, from the demolition of an iconic department store, to the closure of two underground swimming pools and the hockey stadia. Modern history is written in the rictus of the agonised city exposed to modernity. Many cities have undergone such outrages, my own city lost it's old centre to Nazi bombing, a fragile heart torn out. The swimming pools of Maddin's memories are lustful pits, at street level families swim, down one tier the girl's practice mouth to mouth resuscitation on one another, and on the bottom level the boys cavort naked in the changing rooms.The film transcends documentary, even fantastical documentary into mysticism. Maddin uses the imagery of horses, as have many great artists from Raphael, to Gericault, to Marc, to Parajanov. We see Golden Boy parades, a Masonic town hall, and the two forks under the forks, the mysterious underground rivers that feed the mons veneris on which Winnipeg nestles.My personal favourite scene was Lorette Avenue where we are show a "hermaphrodite" street where on one side the street has houses facing front, and on the other side the backs of houses. No-one talks about Lorette Avenue… (Previously Maddin had made distinctions between alleys where the backs of houses only can be scene, and streets where we only see the fronts of houses).I won't spoil the ending for you, you have yet to see the wonder of Citizen Girl! Do not waver or hesitate, make ye to the cinema! Maddin has now taken the step from being a beloved cult director, to being a great auteur. Vive le Cinema! Vive la Résistance Culturelle!

"My Winnipeg" is my initiation to the work of Guy Maddin, and I like it immediately. Filmed essentially in black and white at 33 mm, this 80-minute "surreal documentary" (my own coining) is an exquisite piece of art work. Director Maddin's personal attribute to his home town is a tapestry with three themes developing in parallel, and interwoven.The first is Maddin's surreal dreamy visions while reclining in his seat on a train leaving Winnipeg. The second is a kaleidescope on the history of Winnipeg – endearing, joyful, absurd, exasperating, among other things. Finally, there is a re-enactment of scenes from Maddin's own intriguing childhood. All three are sprinkled with a wonderful sense of humour.Emerging from the cinema with a feeling of elation akin to what one experiences after attending a superb classical concert, I wanted to explore more of director Maddin's work.