My Winnipeg (2008)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Memorable, crazy movie

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I give this credit for being unusual, but that did not make it interesting for me. It is in grainy black and white and is a montage of Winnipeg scenes inter-cut with scenes of some half-asleep guy on a train spouting barely coherent sentences. This Kerouac wannabe got on my nerves. The train keeps moving and the guy keeps saying how he wants to leave Winnipeg, but the train never escapes the city. Maybe that is the message? The guy wants to leave, but he is so attached, or trapped by his past, that he can't get himself out?I was fine with the general theme of having a love-hate relationship with your home town and regretting that many of the things you were fond of are paved over, torn down, or moribund. However, I had a hard time identifying with the tale told here. For example, there is an extended sequence that pays homage to hockey stars of the past that, if you have no interest in hockey as I, is less than interesting. I missed the point of having words intermittently flashed on the screen for a split second that simply echoed some of the narrated words.I used to attend a series called "Experimental Cinema." I found most of the movies I saw in that series as failed attempts at art films. I would put this movie in that category. Not to say that it's a complete loss--the horses frozen in the river with their heads protruding above the ice is a scene one is not likely to forget. You don't know whether to laugh, cry, or wonder if it is even for real.I think this movie gets a high rating since most of those who are inclined to see it are probably inclined to like it.

Meh. Whimsical/bitter reminiscing with lots of made up facts and anecdotes which you can imagine some audiences rocking with mirth to but which aren't all that clever or witty - they're just very whimsical.eg (my spoof)Grainy b/w shots of someone in a living room being offered a cup of tea and drinking it with a smileNarrator: A cup of tea. A cup of tea. My mother would always offer visitors a cup of tea. What is this drink? This tea, cupped in porcelain, porcelain as white as the snow which falls outside onto our Winnipeg sidewalks? My mother served tea in a cup from a set her grandmother gave her, a cup which had come from the mayor's wife, who murdered her own sister, drowning her in a bath of Earl Grey. A drink of death. The cup of life. A cup of tea.It's sort of like that, with a quick shot thrown in of the sister drowned in the bath of tea. 80 mins of that. Doesn't really have anything to say.

Canada's Guy Maddin is certainly a film maker who's films are for some a joy ride into the unknown,while for others an acquired taste. His influences are (among others)some of the films of silent era Soviet documentary film maker Dziga Vertov (Kino Pravda),and Serge Eisenstein (Ivan The Terrible,Alexander Nevsky),as well as some of the pioneer experimental film makers of the 1950's & 1960's,such as Kenneth Anger (Scorpio Rising),Stan Brakhage (The Way To Shadow Garden)& Jack Smith (Flaming Creatures). In this entry,Maddin manages to evoke a love/hate letter to his hometown of Manitoba,Winnipeg. The film seems to be part documentary,part rant on whatever happened to his beloved hometown. Besides incorporating some original home movies,he re-enacts moments from his youth & adulthood with a cast of Canadian actors. Sequences of animation add to this cinematic fever dream that some will love,others will probably walk out on. Not rated by the MPAA,this film contains flashes of nudity,sexual content,rude language & some violent content. Best to leave the little ones home (who would probably be either very confused or bored by it all)

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