My Winnipeg

Directed by Guy Maddin

The latest from the Manitoban mystic known for his inventive prairie expressionism is a kind of “Dear John” letter to his hometown. Maddin combines family anecdotes, local history, regional legend and pure fantasy to create a portrait of himself and Winnipeg. The result is an endearing collage of public and private insights that privileges revealing fictions over hard facts. The otherwise disparate elements are held together by the movements of a sleep train around the hushed city – Winnipeg has ten times the national rate of sleepwalkers, we are told – and the charming deadpan of the director’s commentary (recounted at one remove by Darcy Fehr, who acts and narrates the part of “Guy Maddin”).

Early moments in Maddin/Fehr’s voice-over narration recall another filmmaker who tends to append personal narratives to documentary subjects. As Maddin introduces his sleepy city, Michael Moore’s recurring visits to Flint, Michigan come to mind. Luckily the likeness is momentary. The earnestness of Maddin’s strangest claims (that, for instance, sleepwalkers who re-enter previous homes must be welcomed by the current inhabitants) undermines the vanity a project like My Winnipeg inevitably suggests. These and other citywide pronouncements (“everything that happens in this city is a euphemism,” was a personal favorite) flow smoothly into ruminations on the director’s family, especially his mother.

In fact, for those familiar with Maddin’s trademark style, the visual integration of My Winnipeg’s original material and stock footage might be its most impressive achievement. Whether showing archival film from the early 1900s of horses frozen in the local river, re-enacted domestic scenes or the recent implosion of the city’s storied hockey arena, the disparate materials of My Winnipeg all adhere remarkably to the Maddinian aesthetic.

Beyond visual coherence, My Winnipeg mobilizes many metaphors to string its materials together. Aside from the sleep train, Maddin’s vehicle for exploring and leaving the city (“what if I film my way out of here?” he asks early on), the most interesting is his Native-informed interest in The Forks. According to local legend The Forks – where the Assiniboine and Red Rivers meet – is a churning pool of discordant energies. This geographic intersection shapes Winnipeg’s layout, but for Maddin its upheaval of imperceptible powers is the generative force behind many of his hometown’s idiosyncrasies. This fork imagery also evokes Maddin’s career. If My Winnipeg is a kind of therapeutic exercise, it will be interesting to see what direction the director takes from this juncture.

This review appeared on The L Magazine's blog as part of the magazine's 2008 Tribeca Film Festival coverage, and can be read here.