The Manitoba city of Winnipeg looms large in the imagination of its most famous filmmaking son, Guy Maddin. So it’s only natural that Maddin make a tribute to his hometown.
Tribute? Well, something like that. Actually, it’s hard to define “My Winnipeg” at all — this is a documentary, but it also makes up lots of stuff.
Maddin narrates it, nonstop. At least I assume that’s Maddin’s voice on the soundtrack, claiming to be Guy Maddin. Hard to tell. At the beginning of the movie, he informs us that he’s cast his own mom to play his mother in re-created scenes of his childhood, but the woman on screen is actually Ann Savage, a Hollywood B-movie actress best know for her immortal femme fatale in “Detour.”
Snowy newsreels and vintage photographs conjure up the actual Winnipeg, as Maddin reminisces about the downtown department store and the NHL hockey rink (both now demolished). Maddin has a strong feeling for old things — many of his films resemble silent cinema — so it’s not surprising he sings the praises of lost landmarks.
At the same time, he bemoans getting stuck in Winnipeg all these years. It’s a comforting womb but also a trap.
Just to make his home more interesting, he provides a barrage of made-up facts, such as the idea that Winnipeggers are the world’s busiest sleepwalkers, or that a locally made daytime drama, “Ledge Man,” has run on Winnipeg TV for 40 years.
None of these items is random; “Ledge Man” is about a suicidal chap who has to be talked out of jumping from a building every episode. By his mother — who’s also Maddin’s mother.
“My Winnipeg” zooms along in the editing style of Maddin’s “Brand Upon the Brain!” full of gauzy black-and-white images and cheeky title cards. It’s an essay movie, a sort of illustrated lecture shot through with whimsy. And the lecturer in this case is a bit of a crackpot — in the most likable sense.
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