My Winnipeg @ The Sydney Film Festival
June 15th 2008 22:48
Maddin calls it a 'docu-fantasia', but a more fitting description would be that "My Winnipeg" appears to be the distorted output of a futuristic machine that can read the dreams of malaria victims.
"My Winnipeg" walks the line between fact and fiction so often that the viewer is disoriented - Maddin's film claims to be a documentary about Winnipeg, and how he never managed to leave, but he films in high-contrast black and white, choosing to film his hometown at night, giving the film a garish, murderous quality, much like old 30s classics, like Fritz Lang's "M".
Winnipeg has a certain meaning to Canadians - it's a city often overlooked, usually flown straight over from Vancouver to Toronto, and Winnipegers seem content to bad mouth their own city. Nonetheless, this sleepy town of "sleepwalkers", as Maddin puts it, has contributed greatly to Canada's cultural heritage, with a surprising contribution to the arts.
In fact, Winnipeg is a perfect model for Canada, as a whole. It's the city where the railroads took over, then withered and died as aviation sprung free. It's a city where Eatons and the Bay, once grand Canadian companies, went into bankruptcy.
And, as Maddin notes with a vicious air of angry resentment, it's a city with a powerful hockey history, lost its team to the States, and the arena was demolished.
Canada is mirrored in this tragedy, with the exception that other Canadian cities took the route of swallowing their pills and transforming themselves into mini-US cities, albeit with smaller budgets and terrible winters.
Maddin understands this and weaves it into his documentary, complementing the film with fictional news events that cannot possibly be true. The audience has no time to doubt, however, as we're swept away with this overwhelming sense of nostalgia for a place we've never seen. Well, I have, but just barely.
"My Winnipeg" is a hauntingly beautiful film that may startle viewers expecting a traditional narrative. Maddin's charm is in quick-fire, attention deficit storytelling and his biographical tribute to his hometown is one of the best examinations of a city, exceeding, perhaps, Woody Allen's "Manhattan". Strong words, but where Allen was enthralled by New York, Maddin plunges into the icy roads, where there are no lines, and never turns back.
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