My WinnipegFor the first ten minutes of this movie, I wasn't taken by it. Sure, the voiceover's great, the cinematography’s excellent, and it’s got a great dream-like quality to it, but it just didn't grab me. I didn't know if I could stand listening to Guy Maddin ramble on about forks and forks beneath forks for an hour. It was great filmmaking, it just wasn't gripping.
But after that it changed. And fortunately for me and my dictator, for the better. Guy Maddin then starts to reveal more details about his town, going into specifics about the sleepwalkers, the back roads, the psychics and the brothels that are held in high esteem. I was just amazed at this little town.
One of the main reasons was the cinematography. The collection of images that Guy Maddin throws at you are great on its own but Maddin seems to be doing is not giving you the full picture. He seems to show you shots of horse heads frozen in ponds but it feels like he has left something out of the frame. This makes it so that I was constantly watching every frame just to see if I could find something interesting hidden in the frames.
And then there’s the great scene where the director is retelling his childhood story. And the scenes at the hockey rink. And the swimming pool (“why, why can’t we just swim?”) I can’t say enough about this movie. I love it.
4.5/5