Reel Love is a recurring column from Currents editor Danielle Ryan. The following film is playing this weekend as part of the Campus Film Series.
To watch My Winnipeg is to burrow deep into the memories and mind of director Guy Maddin. Fueled by a debilitating nostalgia, My Winnipeg tracks Guy Maddin’s attempt to answer this universal question: why can’t I escape my childhood? What results is an absurd, and absurdly moving, piece of art. Part biography, part documentary, part experiment, part fantasy, My Winnipeg is a strange and poignant incident of abstract story-telling that is both beautiful and disturbing.
The internal conflicts brought on by Guy Maddin’s attempt to move on from his hometown are acted out in a variety of mediums. At times, the screen is populated by a visual stream of consciousness: montages of historical Winnipeg and its characters; grainy, black-and-white footage of Maddin and his reenacted family; reflective, provocative words and phrases punched onto the screen.
At other times, Maddin directs his conscious mind with discipline. He decides that the only way to learn why he remains tethered to his hometown is to revisit his childhood. With research-like objectivity, he moves back into the home of his childhood, hires actors to replace his family and observes his youth reenacted, searching for something his memories aren’t providing.
These documentary-like moments feel almost dream-like in their absurdity, and even the most “objective” moments are heavily laced with a fairy-tale quality. Everything about this movie seems either completely false or embellished with hyperbole; yet somehow, everything about this movie also feels genuine and true.
My Winnipeg eludes all attempts at being described. The movie is perhaps the closest thing to a dream I’ve ever seen captured on film: everything feels real and possible when you’re asleep, but it’s not until the dream has ended and you are trying to explain it to someone else that you realize just how little sense it makes. However, deep down you know that no matter how nonsensical a dream is, somehow, on some level, it is completely true.
If you are at all curious, and you’re willing to take a risk on a movie much more experimental than your average cinema experience, check out My Winnipeg this weekend. Showings are at 6 and 8:30 p.m. Thursday through Sunday in the Davies Theatre.
Next up on Reel Love: There are only a few weekends left for me to catch up on cinema classics I’ve never seen. This weekend, I’ll be watching and reviewing Animal House, as I’ve been strictly told I must see it before I graduate from college. Then, after Thanksgiving Break, look forward to my review of the next campus film: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
