This movie is just about as un-describable as Guy Maddin is. If you're familiar with who Guy Maddin is, then you're probably aware of this movie and how it fits into his general approach to film-making. If you're not, well, this would be a great way to be introduced.
"My Winnipeg" is fairly straight-forward in concept, it's just different in execution. Guy Maddin mixes fact and fiction (as he's wont to do) to make a sort-of documentary about Winnipeg, his home and geographical Oedipal complex. As usual, his approach involves some of the most strange, surreal analogies (strange because they come out of nowhere; surreal because they actually make sense and work for what he's going for); dark humor; silent era montage editing; and dark, dry humor. He narrates it himself with an angry, purposefully whiny voice, both intoning with audio the frustration he feels with the world he's trying to escape and the underlying love and passion for it. The "plot", if you'd call it that, is technically about him trying to leave Winnipeg, but by the time the end comes, you'll be convinced he doesn't really want to leave--even though he never says as much and the "plot" doesn't head in that direction.
Beware: here be demons. There's sleepwalkers, frozen horses, smashed deer, and sexual undertones to almost everything. There's re-enactments, found footage, animation, digital effects, and back-projection. There's montage editing, snow falling constantly, layered images, and repeated ostensibly failed takes. It's a whirlwind of paranoia, anxiety, hysterics, and humor, all with the usual black-and-white enclosed feeling that's inherent in many of Maddin's works, the type of imagery that feels like you barely perceive it at the back of your mind and yet it's right in front of your eyes (even when it is in color). And you will laugh. There's not much else that can be said definitively about how to react to this movie, but laughter is a pretty good prediction.
But rest assured (and most amazingly): It's accessible! Maddin's commentary, intertitles, and playfulness is contagious, and even though his stream of thought seems awkward and even at times repetitive, it's easy to follow and summarily follows through to a good conclusion. This is the type of movie that proves that a movie can be "weird" and still abruptly entertaining. There's just not enough of that out there...
--PolarisDiB
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