My Winnipeg"Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba, Canada", according to Wikipedia. After watching Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, I'm just not sure that is true anymore, or that it is any more true than a waking dream, my senses called into doubt. To say My Winnipeg is a documentary is like saying that the cubist work of Picasso was photorealistic. Like many of Guy Maddin's oeuvre, the rules are bent past the point of breaking, and all bets are off about expectations, unless you expect the unexpected. "Bizarre." As I took some notes in preparation to write this, the word bizarre emerged no less than four times...bizarre...and with good reason.
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There is a narrative thread which passes through My Winnipeg, that of Guy Maddin (the actor played by Darcy Fehr, not the director, who does not appear in the film) and his exodus from the City of Opportunity, a land which--if Guy is to be believed--possesses ten times the number of sleepwalkers of any other city, and would that they could stay awake long enough, in their perpetual sleepiness and wintry abode, might be able to leave for warmer pastures. The denizens might be able to cross the Red and Assiniboine Rivers--and the "forks beneath the forks"...but they cannot, for Winnipeg--at least, Guy's Winnipeg--is a land of mystery and legend...strange legends which are demented and yet also nostalgic. Amid his dreams of escape on the cold winter train out of town, Guy recalls the history of Winnipeg, events which are all suspect in this dream logic mist. Stories and fables of events like the Winnipeg General Strike are peppered with context like the proximity to a Catholic girls' school, imprinting the sense of sexual anxiety where history might tell a different tale. Guy's recollections about civic curios are often bolstered by his own recollections of the events, and he provides individual context to the significance, such as his own passion about hockey (how emblematically Canadian). After the destruction of the bankrupt shopping center in town, Guy angrily vents about how it was replaced by what he considers a substandard hockey stadium. As if to emphasize his utter disgust at the travesty he perceives this to be, the film dramatically shifts to color. Up until this point, the film had been in stark black and white for upwards of an hour, so it is a jarring, but effective, stylistic decision. So too is the parallel reaction when the Winnipeg Arena is closed, demolished, and Guy remembers his fond memories of the hockey stadium. According to Guy, he was born there, and attended his first game at three days old. He recalls the fondness he shared for the players, the familiar smells, the sights, and throws in a dash or two of insanity, by claiming that the abandoned ice rink is haunted by the retired players from teams past, now calling themselves the Black Tuesdays, in memory of the Great Depression, playing in protest of the NHL and the big money which kept Winnipeg out of participating in the league. And Guy recalls his father, greatly involved in the game, and the fondness he had for them both.
But much of Guy's obsession revolves around his mother (Ann Savage), whom he envisions as an omniscient force, who in an unspoken way, exerts some kind of dominance over Guy. Guy's craving to flee Winnipeg seems to be hinged on his ability to sever his ties, and break from his mother. Guy's masterstroke is to create a documentary about his family, recreating his life from "1963ish", so as to role-play--by observation only--his mother and actors playing his siblings, to reach some kind of closure. Mother's presence is profound; when Guy recalls the only television show produced in Winnipeg, it deals with a young man--appropriately referred to as "Ledge Man"--who gets suicidal and goes out on a ledge, threatening to jump, until his mother--played by Guy's mother--talks him down...only for the preview of next week's episode to reveal that he'll be back out on that same ledge. What is Guy really trying to work out? His recollections of his past wax nostalgic even when they revel in tragedy. He remembers the "white, block, house" he grew up in, above a hair salon of his aunt's, where the smells of women's hair spray and perfume haunted and clung to him, but it is that aroma of lilac which blows into his dreams, seducing him back into the fold. Moments of trivia or history--or both--or fiction become a muddy pool, where it is more fun to imagine a strange town, a convening of the bizarre. There is a civic law granting people to keep the keys of their former residence, so they can sleepwalk back into the homes of their childhood undisturbed. There is a law preventing the destruction of any signage, meaning that there is a graveyard full of signs. There was a trend of seances to commune with the dead--or even mythological--and one such instance evoked the town's mascot "The Golden Boy"/Hermes in the midst of the "incorruptible" town mayor and other members of the council, including a collection of madames, whom many of the streets in town are named after. Truth? Fiction? Does it matter when you dream? There is one story Guy tells about how there used to be a scavenger hunt performed around Winnipeg, and the winner--possessed of the greatest knowledge of the city, able to search beneath all the rocks and into every nook and cranny--would win a one-way ticket out of town. Guy recalls that not one winner ever cashed the ticket, because the idea was that each winner would love the town so much, that they would not wish to leave. What more appropriate story--true or false--could fit Guy's claim to loathe the city, yet be so impassioned and knowledgeable about it, that he has great difficulty--ticket or otherwise--leaving the city, blaming sleepiness or the like? Does Guy leave Winnipeg? Maybe yes, maybe no, but Winnipeg never leaves Guy.
Recommended for: Fans of a bizarre (there it is again) mockumentary ostensibly about Winnipeg, and one of its citizens making a film about the city, which is both personal and anti-personal in its seamless dancing between fact and fiction. Go ahead and not look up what is true and false, I dare you.
But much of Guy's obsession revolves around his mother (Ann Savage), whom he envisions as an omniscient force, who in an unspoken way, exerts some kind of dominance over Guy. Guy's craving to flee Winnipeg seems to be hinged on his ability to sever his ties, and break from his mother. Guy's masterstroke is to create a documentary about his family, recreating his life from "1963ish", so as to role-play--by observation only--his mother and actors playing his siblings, to reach some kind of closure. Mother's presence is profound; when Guy recalls the only television show produced in Winnipeg, it deals with a young man--appropriately referred to as "Ledge Man"--who gets suicidal and goes out on a ledge, threatening to jump, until his mother--played by Guy's mother--talks him down...only for the preview of next week's episode to reveal that he'll be back out on that same ledge. What is Guy really trying to work out? His recollections of his past wax nostalgic even when they revel in tragedy. He remembers the "white, block, house" he grew up in, above a hair salon of his aunt's, where the smells of women's hair spray and perfume haunted and clung to him, but it is that aroma of lilac which blows into his dreams, seducing him back into the fold. Moments of trivia or history--or both--or fiction become a muddy pool, where it is more fun to imagine a strange town, a convening of the bizarre. There is a civic law granting people to keep the keys of their former residence, so they can sleepwalk back into the homes of their childhood undisturbed. There is a law preventing the destruction of any signage, meaning that there is a graveyard full of signs. There was a trend of seances to commune with the dead--or even mythological--and one such instance evoked the town's mascot "The Golden Boy"/Hermes in the midst of the "incorruptible" town mayor and other members of the council, including a collection of madames, whom many of the streets in town are named after. Truth? Fiction? Does it matter when you dream? There is one story Guy tells about how there used to be a scavenger hunt performed around Winnipeg, and the winner--possessed of the greatest knowledge of the city, able to search beneath all the rocks and into every nook and cranny--would win a one-way ticket out of town. Guy recalls that not one winner ever cashed the ticket, because the idea was that each winner would love the town so much, that they would not wish to leave. What more appropriate story--true or false--could fit Guy's claim to loathe the city, yet be so impassioned and knowledgeable about it, that he has great difficulty--ticket or otherwise--leaving the city, blaming sleepiness or the like? Does Guy leave Winnipeg? Maybe yes, maybe no, but Winnipeg never leaves Guy.
Recommended for: Fans of a bizarre (there it is again) mockumentary ostensibly about Winnipeg, and one of its citizens making a film about the city, which is both personal and anti-personal in its seamless dancing between fact and fiction. Go ahead and not look up what is true and false, I dare you.