My Winnipeg

Directed by: Guy Maddin - 1 hour, 20 minutes - 2007 - Canada – B&W - DVD - 1.33:1
Starring: Ann Savage, Darcy Fehr, Louis Negin

“All a dream, all a dream. I need to wake up, keep my eyes open somehow. I need to get out of here. I Need To Get Out Of Here. What if? What if I film my way out of here? It’s time for extreme measures.”

Guy Maddin makes films like no other. His style is mainly inspired by silent film – 8 and 16mm film stock, title cards quickly flashing by, melodramatic performances and clichéd scenes, creative practical effects and film tricks assembled at the small warehouse he uses as a studio. His films are personal, surreal, hilarious, and veer between the detached and intimate, the knowable and unknowable. They explore his loves, his fears, his psychosexual impulses, his needs. His Mommy issues, Daddy issues, and Winnipeg issues.

My Winnipeg is a love/hate letter from Guy Maddin to the city that made him, a “docu-fantasia” as he calls it. He wants to escape. He is trapped by the forces of Winnipeg – the confluence of mystic rivers, the sleepwalking that afflicts all of the citizens, who wander through secret back streets at night and enter the houses of their youth (all Winnipeggers are permitted by civil law to carry the keys to all of their previous residences). He must escape. He goes through the history of the city – corrupt officials at midnight séances, happy times at the Happyland Fun Park, the daily tension of Winnipeg’s most successful long-running daytime TV show, “LedgeMan!” (pictured, above), the building up and tearing down of the city. The icy glories of the Winnipeg Jets and their betrayal by the greedy southern invaders from the National Hockey League. Worker riots. Russian invasions. Bridges dreaming of Egypt. Frozen horses. He must escape.

When I first watched My Winnipeg I was pretty sure I hated it for the first 10 minutes. At 20 minutes, I decided I’d begrudgingly watch it through. Once a half hour had passed I was starting to enjoy it. By the time it finished it was my favorite film of the year. I’ve never seen another film like it, and it achieved the rare and great feat where I left the film feeling like I could see the world through the eyes of the filmmaker.

Trailer
IMDB page
Roger Ebert review - “If you love movies in the very sinews of your imagination, you should experience the work of Guy Maddin.”