The Films of Guy Maddin - 'Archangel' and 'My Winnipeg'

This post is pretty late coming, as tonight may be your final chance to see either of these films... but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to highlight the work of genius Canadian auteur Guy Maddin while two of his movies are showing downtown. I've seen four of his features now, and caught his most recent "documentary", the hugely acclaimed My Winnipeg, on the plane ride home from Athens (cheers to those fancy new personal screens.)

That film has been playing in Vancouver for a couple of weeks now, and I imagine come Friday the Tinsletown Cinemas could axe it to open up space for another 'Batman' or 'Pineapple Express' screening (I'll update this when I confirm). The other one is Archangel, his newly-restored second feature, screening tonight at the Pacific Cinematheque. A bit more, and a trailer, after the jump...

I've been a big fan of Maddin's since 2003's The Saddest Music in the World. I was the kinda' kid who spent most his time during high school either staying up late to watch foreign films (no, not on Showcase...) or playing hookie to stay home and lie on the couch watching 'Siskel & Ebert' reruns. So when Roger Ebert started hyping this Canadian (?!) experimental film during my second year at UBC, I found a sober spot to listen. With its grainy black and white, heightened melodrama, and warped use of old Hollywood cliche - the movie completely unsettled me with its twisted hijacking of '20s era film aesthetics. But how could anyone not be completely drawn in by a story revolving around a Depression-era worldwide competition to find the saddest piece of music by the world, hosted by a beer magnate in Winnipeg. So worth searching out.

The only real comparison to his work may be early David Lynch (think Eraserhead). Non-linear, surrealistic stories of the perverse and fantastic rendered in fuzzy black-and-white; sexual, sarcastic, and sometimes sadistic; watching Maddin is an experience more akin to seeing a Dali film than anything you would normally find in the modern multiplex.

Even better than 'Saddest Music' was Brand Upon the Brain, Maddin's batshit insane, pseudo- autobiographical fantasy about an orphanage ruled over by his lighthouse-keeping tyrannical mother. It's no surprise that he's also directed 23 silent movies, as the classic B&W 'dawn-of-film' look is the Maddin trademark. It takes a little while to get accustomed too, but his films are truly works of strange beauty, and you owe it to yourself (and Canadian film) to catch one of these pieces on the big screen (there was no way to watch those pictures he so lovingly imitates back at home in the '20s... dial-up is, like, way too slow for movie torrents...)

Both aesthetically and thematically, however, Guy Maddin really stands alone, and comparisons to Lynch are likely just a critic's reaction to encountering two North American filmmakers who manage to pose a legitimate challenge to the industry prescribed 'formula' that has all but sucked modern cinema dry of legitimate artistry.

--Maddin's unique style was already evident in 1990's Archangel, but his critical reputation was only beginning to burgeon. The film is a drama-comedy billed as -- surprise -- 'surreal'! It takes place in Russia immediately following the First World War, and tells the story of a one-legged Canadian soldier as he obsessively searches for lost love. It's been blurbed as a "masterpiece," and with Maddin's recent success the film has been remastered and re-released. Count me in. Tonight's screening at the Cinematheque will probably be the last time this film gets shown in Vancouver for a long time... so if you're not at Tinseltown I hope I'll see you there.

--My Winnipeg is the man's latest film, a 'documentary' on the Winnipeg of Guy Madidn's youth - and it's been getting universally strong reviews. If you can't catch it while it's still in Vancity, make sure track it down as soon as possible.

From the folklore surrounding multi-level swimming pools, to the ins-and-outs of an underground taxi cab system which only uses the alleyways, to an uncompromising attack on the banality of modern architecture... the movie is essentially about what Winnipeg means to Guy. A good (and highly compelling) portion is devoted to the destruction of the old hockey arena (Maddin's birthplace)... and all the peeks at Winnipeg's past are surrounded by an almost soap opera-esque replaying of his childhood memories at home. The film takes a 'mythic' perspective to Winnipeg; as if it's the city seen through the eyes of a starry-eyed 12-year-old lost in his own fantasy world... which is basically what it is.

While Guy's movie seems like it's trying to do a million things at once, and it's almost impossible to separate the fact from the fiction, the end product is more compelling than pretty much anything else I've seen in the past year. Maddin's been shattering the boundaries of what a theatrical feature can do... and now he's posed just as strong a challenge to the often boring conventions of the feature-length documentary. Here's a good essay from the Walrus on the film, and you can watch a trailer below:

'My Winnipeg' plays today at Tinseltown at 3:40, 5:40, 7:50, and 9:50

'Archangel' plays tonight at the Pacific Cinematheque at 7:30 and 9:10