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More From The True/False Documentary Film Fest: Guy Maddin's MY WINNIPEG!!
Merrick here...
Tequila Mockingbird sent in a write-up about a film that has yet to be mentioned in our coverage of the True/False Film Fest in Columbia, MO. The movie sounds interesting based on what I've heard thus far.
Here's Tequila Mockingbird...
I caught the latest film from Guy Maddin at the True/False Film Fest in Columbia, MO recently. Noticed another batch of reviews about documentaries from that festival which didn't mention Maddin's "My Winnipeg," which I thought was a fantastic enough film you might want to hear about it.
The movie was a secret screening, so we didn't know what it was till we got there, and the guy who introduced it made the slightly unbelievable claim that we were the first audience in the world to see this thing, or maybe he qualified it with the first audience "of this size."
I know little about Maddin's work. I saw "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary," which was technically interesting but failed, for me, to break through to being thoroughly entertaining. Then I saw "The Saddest Music in the World" which I fell head-over-heels for. I need to watch it a second time, but I still remember the ending at least, and it's a tough ending to beat.
"My Winnipeg," purportedly a documentary about Maddin's hometown of Winnipeg, in Canada, is the funniest thing I've seen him do so far. I was going to say "the best" but comedy has a tendency to blind me in those judgments. It claims to be a documentary, however it's impossible not to suspect that some of the history of the city is imagined by Maddin. As anybody who is familiar with his work knows, he specializes in imitating really old film, even utilizing the technique of silent film in "Dracula" (if I recall correctly); and so there is footage from Winnipeg's early days in the twenties and thirties etc., but naturally you cannot be sure that Maddin did not shoot it himself.
All questions of truth and falseness aside, though, the simple fact of the matter is that it's hysterical. The first ten or so minutes might seem pretentious; self-aware pretentiousness, but pretentious nonetheless. Don't fear. Stick with it. It becomes a comedy that, for me, evoked both "Annie Hall" and Hunter S. Thompson.
How can that be bad? "Annie Hall" because along with information about Maddin's city he also gives autobiographical information (again, alledgedly). There is a part when he recalls that his sister once came home late after hitting a deer. Their mother is convinced she was out having sex. Who will not hear Woody Allen's voice when the narrator says: "She hit a deer? My mother sees through this euphamism." And the part about the tree growing out of the circular patch of ground surrounded by a curb being declared by Guiness "the world's smallest park, believe it or not" sounds like it could have been lifted directly out of "Annie Hall." ("Believe it or not, I grew up under a rollercoaster.")
Where Hunter S. Thompson comes in is the narrator. He is funny but not as gentle as Woody Allen; he has a strange private detective earnestness in his voice that I always thought Thompson was sort of parodying. You talk overly seriously about something and people can't help but laugh. This is why, I think, the opening pretentious ten minutes or so of "Winnipeg" are important. It sets up the tone of voice that the narrator mocks the rest of the movie. The whole film is one long parody of itself.
I don't know how much truth there is to any of the movie. I don't know anything about Winnipeg nor of Maddin's personal life. It is fun, though, to wonder about the fakeness or authenticity of certain shots. The old black-and-white footage of the old ladies crowding around the "world's smallest park" to keep it from being bulldozed is almost certainly fake. But what about the frozen horses? One of the most memorable scenes in the movie recalls an incident during which a bunch of horses tried to cross a freezing river which froze so fast that the frozen heads of the horses are left sticking out of the ice.
This is one of the less humorous moments, in case you hadn't guessed. But sublimely bizarre (we may evoke David Lynch here to join the others): the story goes on to tell how people would go out and walk among the frozen horse heads, how lovers would walk among them, as though they were statues in a garden. There is black-and-white footage of this. It's the most surreal of moments and among the prime candidates for "fictional" elements in "My Winnipeg," yet you have to wonder: knowing that some things in this movie might be made up, and knowing that Maddin shoots his own old "footage," wouldn't it be the ultimate joke to play on us if this story out of all of them were 100% true, if the footage were real?
Well these questions are all in good fun; but the prime concern is that the movie is massively enternaining. Every time the narrator (who I don't think is actually Maddin) stoutly says "we Winnipeggers" I defy you not to at least giggle; the landlady who leases him the house for the recreation of scenes of his old family life and then refuses to leave while they shoot; the old hockey player who has received so many brain injuries that he has been rendered "eternally happy"; on and on.
This is a fantastic little movie, and anybody who grudgingly appreciates Maddin but who thinks he might just be an experimenter and nothing else, not an entertainer, unable to make you laugh on a real, unpretentious level, really needs to go see "My Winnipeg" as soon as possible. As for me, I have looked him up on imdb and have fully realized how much of his work I have been overlooking with these three puny titles under my belt. I intend to get around to that straight away.
If you use this, call me Tequila Mockingbird
The movie was a secret screening, so we didn't know what it was till we got there, and the guy who introduced it made the slightly unbelievable claim that we were the first audience in the world to see this thing, or maybe he qualified it with the first audience "of this size."
I know little about Maddin's work. I saw "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary," which was technically interesting but failed, for me, to break through to being thoroughly entertaining. Then I saw "The Saddest Music in the World" which I fell head-over-heels for. I need to watch it a second time, but I still remember the ending at least, and it's a tough ending to beat.
"My Winnipeg," purportedly a documentary about Maddin's hometown of Winnipeg, in Canada, is the funniest thing I've seen him do so far. I was going to say "the best" but comedy has a tendency to blind me in those judgments. It claims to be a documentary, however it's impossible not to suspect that some of the history of the city is imagined by Maddin. As anybody who is familiar with his work knows, he specializes in imitating really old film, even utilizing the technique of silent film in "Dracula" (if I recall correctly); and so there is footage from Winnipeg's early days in the twenties and thirties etc., but naturally you cannot be sure that Maddin did not shoot it himself.
All questions of truth and falseness aside, though, the simple fact of the matter is that it's hysterical. The first ten or so minutes might seem pretentious; self-aware pretentiousness, but pretentious nonetheless. Don't fear. Stick with it. It becomes a comedy that, for me, evoked both "Annie Hall" and Hunter S. Thompson.
How can that be bad? "Annie Hall" because along with information about Maddin's city he also gives autobiographical information (again, alledgedly). There is a part when he recalls that his sister once came home late after hitting a deer. Their mother is convinced she was out having sex. Who will not hear Woody Allen's voice when the narrator says: "She hit a deer? My mother sees through this euphamism." And the part about the tree growing out of the circular patch of ground surrounded by a curb being declared by Guiness "the world's smallest park, believe it or not" sounds like it could have been lifted directly out of "Annie Hall." ("Believe it or not, I grew up under a rollercoaster.")
Where Hunter S. Thompson comes in is the narrator. He is funny but not as gentle as Woody Allen; he has a strange private detective earnestness in his voice that I always thought Thompson was sort of parodying. You talk overly seriously about something and people can't help but laugh. This is why, I think, the opening pretentious ten minutes or so of "Winnipeg" are important. It sets up the tone of voice that the narrator mocks the rest of the movie. The whole film is one long parody of itself.
I don't know how much truth there is to any of the movie. I don't know anything about Winnipeg nor of Maddin's personal life. It is fun, though, to wonder about the fakeness or authenticity of certain shots. The old black-and-white footage of the old ladies crowding around the "world's smallest park" to keep it from being bulldozed is almost certainly fake. But what about the frozen horses? One of the most memorable scenes in the movie recalls an incident during which a bunch of horses tried to cross a freezing river which froze so fast that the frozen heads of the horses are left sticking out of the ice.
This is one of the less humorous moments, in case you hadn't guessed. But sublimely bizarre (we may evoke David Lynch here to join the others): the story goes on to tell how people would go out and walk among the frozen horse heads, how lovers would walk among them, as though they were statues in a garden. There is black-and-white footage of this. It's the most surreal of moments and among the prime candidates for "fictional" elements in "My Winnipeg," yet you have to wonder: knowing that some things in this movie might be made up, and knowing that Maddin shoots his own old "footage," wouldn't it be the ultimate joke to play on us if this story out of all of them were 100% true, if the footage were real?
Well these questions are all in good fun; but the prime concern is that the movie is massively enternaining. Every time the narrator (who I don't think is actually Maddin) stoutly says "we Winnipeggers" I defy you not to at least giggle; the landlady who leases him the house for the recreation of scenes of his old family life and then refuses to leave while they shoot; the old hockey player who has received so many brain injuries that he has been rendered "eternally happy"; on and on.
This is a fantastic little movie, and anybody who grudgingly appreciates Maddin but who thinks he might just be an experimenter and nothing else, not an entertainer, unable to make you laugh on a real, unpretentious level, really needs to go see "My Winnipeg" as soon as possible. As for me, I have looked him up on imdb and have fully realized how much of his work I have been overlooking with these three puny titles under my belt. I intend to get around to that straight away.
If you use this, call me Tequila Mockingbird
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I tried to watch THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD, and even Isabella Rossellini couldn't save that shit for me. It seems the older I get, the less I can stand directors who try too hard to be quirky and weird. Even David Lynch has become a parody of himself.
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It's almost as interesting as my left testicle.
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at last your boundless praises have been sung. BTW - Winnipeg is, truly and statisticacally , the dandruff and arson capital of Canada!
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This movie played at the BErlinale. I did a piece on it - http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35603 with te other documentaries and I must say that it qualifies as the single worst piece of crap that I saw at the entire festival.
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He has Pancreatic Cancer which has spread.
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Biiiird!
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In fact, when it played at TIFF they had Guy Maddin doing the narration live. I wasn't there, but I heard it was incredible.
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Winnipeg is a dirty, unkempt pothole of a "city" (really big small town is more accurate) that's so insecure, they run on this childish rampage anytime someone says anything contrary to their delusional, jingoistic perspective. Winnipeg's motto should be "All Your Dreams Are Dead".
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It should be note the Fodor's guide to interesting places has listed qtipsq's left testicle as one of the ten places to visit before you die. However it has nothing nice to say about the right one.
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shitty city and their football team sucks too....what an F'ing Dinwiddie of a town!
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Headline it AICN
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Hockey head injuries? Sounds about right.
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You forgot murder capital as well.
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Although off-topic, whenever I hear about Winnipeg I can't help but think of Winnie from the Wonder Years. Is there something wrong with me...??!!
http://tinyurl.com/2qdpmv -
Nothing wrong with the 'Peg. I was mushing my team of huskies to work today and saw the actual spot on the Red where the water froze those horses. Made the Tribune news back in '78. Looking forward to Maddin's perspective.
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one thing about winnipeg... for some reason it produces half of all of the great musical acts in the country
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"it produces half of all of the great musical acts in the country"? What are you smoking? The Guess Who are has-beens and as far as "great" Canadian acts go, that's about it.
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Yeah, thanks a bunch for your thoughtful contribution to the talkback. _________ I had found Maddin's stuff to be more quirky/interesting than properly entertaining until I saw "Saddest Music" which I found to be surprisingly accessible. It's not mainstream but it's hardly impenetrable arthouse tosh. Worth a look if you're any way inclined. Thanks for the review Tequila - I look forward to this.
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Maddin is one of my cinematic heroes for the past 15 years and my favorite comedy ever is Errol Morris' "Vernon, Florida". This one sounds like a blast.
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Did Toronto leave the country...?
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