My Winnipeg

Star Review

Bonkers from beginning to end - Michael Brooke on Maddin's personal account of childhood.

Maddin originally wanted to call his first documentary Love Me, Love My Winnipeg, after a genuine 1970s civic pride slogan that he found appealingly threatening. As that anecdote suggests, anyone in search of a conventional travelogue should give this extremely personal portrait of Maddin’s home city the widest possible berth lest its feverish images take up unwanted root in their wilder dreams. Filmed mostly in grainy black-and-white, Maddin's Winnipeg is a crepuscular place, full of sleepwalkers, triple-decker swimming pools and frozen horses. Genuine historical events (North America’s only serious communist insurrection, a staged Nazi invasion) rub shoulders with gay bison stampedes and a soap opera with a suicidal protagonist nicknamed ‘Ledge-Man’. If this wasn’t heady enough, Maddin interweaves it with reconstructions of his own convoluted family life, his mother played by the terrifying Ann Savage from Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour. In short, it’s certifiably bonkers from beginning to end – but unlike many Guy Maddin films, it’s also perfect for beginners.

Michael Brooke on 10th September 2008

View all 56 of Michael Brooke’s reviews

[ Show Film Description ]

Film Description

My Winnipeg winds its way though the birthplace of personal mythologies, attempting to understand the nature of memory. Equal parts mystical rumination and personal history, city chronicle and deranged post-Freudian proletarian fantasy, My Winnipeg blends local myth with childhood trauma. All narrated by Maddin’s usual entertaining and inspired energy. Commissioned by Michael Burns whose command was ‘enchant me with your treatment’ this was Maddin’s cue to set about exploring the spell of his home town. By mixing animation, archive and re-enactments he has created an extraordinary visual homage in true individual Guy Maddin style.

[ Show Star Review ]

Ratings for this DVD

Average Rating
Log in to place your vote!

DVD Extras

• My Winnipeg Live in Toronto
• In Case I Disappear
• Career interview with director filmed at BFI Southbank.

Film Details

Cast

Ann Savage

Technical Details