HOME  |  February 9, 2010  |  Blogs: Daily Dish and Style

My Toronto Life: Sign In  |  Register   |  Contests  |  Subscribe

Toronto Life

Advertisement
TIFF Reviews

My Winnipeg

Guy Maddin
(80', Canada)
*****



Both departure and summa, My Winnipeg is Maddin’s funniest and most Canadian film to date, a tribute to the hometown that has inspired and irritated him—in more or less equal measure—since he began making movies. A documentary of sorts, but primarily of the reality that is Maddin’s mind, the film has a ludicrous through line: the director (or his surrogate, actor Darcy Fehr, who also played “Guy Maddin” in Cowards Bend the Knee) rides a nighttime train, desperately trying to escape the city and its ghosts—and his mother, “a force as strong as all the trains in Winnipeg.” But how do you escape the metropolis whose very existence you have done so much to poeticize? Maddin’s Winnipeg is not one that many see—a romantic, magical burg in the geographic centre of North America; the coldest city in the world; a supernatural place with secret lanes that have never existed on maps, and other streets named after brothel madams. But it’s also the city that abandoned and then destroyed Maddin’s beloved Winnipeg Hockey Arena—in recounting this, the director’s voice rises with the same ire he uses in describing Mom’s passive-aggressive manipulations. A movie like no other and an absolute delight. (JM)


More TIFF Reviews Articles
You, the Living
Across the Universe
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Help Me Eros
In the Valley of Elah
See all TIFF Reviews articles »

Originally published August 2007

Current Issue
Get more Toronto Life:

DAILY: For up-to-the-minute updates, follow us on Twitter or via RSS
WEEKLY: Find the latest it-spots, top wines and the hottest parties by signing up for our free weekly e-newsletters
MONTHLY: Don't miss a word.
Subscribe to our award-winning magazine today

E-mail your ideas and feedback to Toronto Life editors

Today in Toronto: February 9, 2010

 |  RSS

Special messages from our partners Toronto Life and Yellow Pages Wedding Guide 2010. Click here for Perfect Escapes Click here to view the full Private Schools Directory Click here to view the Home Renovation Guide Click to search careers on Toronto Life. Powered by Career Builder Canada

© 2010. All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part strictly prohibited. Toronto Life is a registered trademark of Toronto Life Publishing Company Limited