Guy Maddin

Guy Maddin is one of my favourite directors, he's quirky, he's odd, he's refreshingly bizarre and usually non-linear in a good way. The Saddest Music in the World is a beautiful, disorientating look at relationships. Sort-of. The most recent one of his, My Winnipeg, which I watched the other night, is more linear - a homage to his hometown, Winnipeg. Part exploration of his mother issues (as crops up in many of his movies), part critique of public planning, part romantic rememberance of childhood. The more linear take, is balanced by the competing, although complementary storylines (mother, childhood, public works, dead hockey players). The movie is strangely affecting, it pulls you in, it engages you, and it's not hard to extrapolate to where-ever you live. Do city corporations kill city vibe? do childhood memories corrupt your view of a place? Does snow effect the byways and highways, with the seamier side of the city sitting alongside the public face?

Basically for all the vagueness of the above, and I'd be the first to admit, it's contradictory and vague, and as if written by a sleepwalker (another image of Maddin's Winnipeg), but thats how the movie feels. I loved it. It maybe my favourite Maddin. I don't know. But I would definitely recommend this movie.

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