MY WINNIPEG

-By Kevin Lally

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The Manitoba Tourism Board may never endorse Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, the Canadian auteur’s dependably eccentric cinematic ode to his frostbitten hometown, but no city can boast a more original or delightful historical pageant. Continuing in the quasi-autobiographical vein of his recent Cowards Bend the Knee and Brand Upon the Brain!, Maddin delivers another unique, phantasmagorical, handcrafted spectacle that again confirms his place as one of independent film’s wittiest, wildest and most singular talents.

With his deliberately archaic visual style (grainy black-and-white, jittery montage, oversized performances, campy intertitles), it’s hard to tell where Maddin’s original setups end and where any archival footage may begin. It’s also tough to discern what’s heartfelt in the director’s pseudo-memoir and what is pure mischief, though Maddin cultists will recognize certain recurring elements such as his childhood visits to the “gynecocracy” of his mother’s beauty shop and to the changing rooms of the hockey arena where his dad was a coach.

The movie’s framing device is an eerily slow-moving train ride, as a young actor standing in for the director bids farewell to a dank, gray, icebound city. “Snowy, sleepwalking Winnipeg,” Maddin intones, his narration claiming that the city has ten times the sleepwalking rate of any other locale. The film intertwines scenes of Maddin’s own purported family history (such as an odd ritual involving the straightening of a hallway rug) with episodes from the city’s past, some based on fact (including the 1919 general strike and the demolition of the Winnipeg Arena and the landmark Eaton’s department store) and others riotously fanciful (such as an indelible sight gag involving horses and a frozen river).

Maddin’s first “documentary” gives him free rein to go whether his playful imagination takes him. If one interlude doesn’t quite grab you, don’t fret: There’s another surprise package just moments away. The detours range from a séance using members of the Winnipeg Ballet, to the uniting of the homeless community on the city’s rooftops, to a supposed TV series from Maddin’s youth called “Ledge Man,” which each week depicts the same poor soul being talked out of a suicide leap. The co-star of that show is revealed as Maddin’s own mother, played here by Ann Savage of the legendary ’40s low-budget noir, Detour. The movie opens with Maddin coaching Savage’s performance of the immortal lines “Was it the boy on the track team or the man with the tire iron?”—insane dialogue that has a delicious payoff later in the film.

In his notes on the film (also referenced in the movie itself), Maddin tells the likely tall tale of an annual scavenger hunt started by railway pioneer William Cornelius Van Horne: “Every one of the town’s residents was given a treasure map and invited to participate. First prize was a one-way ticket on the next train out of town. The secret hope behind this contest was that after a long day spent combing through the city’s nooks and crannies, Winnipeggers would discover that the real treasure was here all along, that it was Winnipeg itself.”

My Winnipeg is like that fondly irreverent treasure hunt, and you’ll find yourself drawn to this chilly but warm city, and the daft, droll filmmaker who has become one of its favorite sons.