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My Winnipeg

MY WINNIPEG (Guy Maddin) Rating: NNN


Twee is the watchword of My Winnipeg, the latest of Maddin’s personal fantasias to revolve around the hazy memories of a character named “Guy Maddin.”

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He’s played here by Darcy Fehr as a somnolent train passenger whose life flashes before his eyes as he tries to escape the city limits, while the real Maddin supplies the film’s feverish narration on the soundtrack.

As was the case in Maddin’s last film, Brand Upon The Brain!, “Guy’s” memories are somehow rooted in the filmmaker’s beloved 1920s, when Winnipeg’s mayor recruited a psychic ballerina to dance a séance, an entire building was swallowed up by an underground lake and the seeds of many strange rituals were sown, some of which may or may not have involved members of his family.

It’s conceptually nifty and occasionally very clever – the work of a talented collage artist having a goof on his notoriously stodgy hometown. It’s the favourite to win the Toronto Film Critics Association’s Best Canadian Film award, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d taken me on this tour several times before, with ever-diminishing returns.

Screens January 8, 4:30 pm, at the Bloor.

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