At Tribeca: My Winnipeg (Take Two)

My Winnipeg (Directed by Guy Maddin)
Review by Cullen Gallagher
Read Benjamin H. Sutton's review here

Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni ends with a young man stepping onto a train just before the crack of dawn. As the train pulls out of the station, images of everything being left behind are superimposed on the screen—slumbering parents and friends—which raises the ultimate question, is our protagonist really leaving them behind? Or, even in running away, is he running back to home through his memories? My Winnipeg—that is, Guy Maddin’s expressionistic remembrance of his Canadian hometown—seems to use this sequence as a jumping off point for his own attempted escape. The film begins with a young man on a train at night as it rides through Winnipeg, while voice-over narration conveys his thoughts, ranging from the anxious to the nostalgic, and often falling somewhere in between.

Maddin’s narration (performed by Darcy Fehr, who previously performed as “Guy Maddin” in Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee) carries echoes of David Goodis’ noir lamentations, and while he speaks cynically about his hometown and its citizens, referring to them as “sleepwalkers,” he never forgets how closely linked to them he is (reinforced by the constant reminder to “stay awake” less he forget to get off the train and wake up back home in Winnipeg). His musings soon turn into cultural and familial historiography, alternating flights of fancy with (seemingly) historical facts about the town, however odd they may be. And its precisely the conflation/confusion between fact and fiction which makes the film so pleasurable: it’s like a personal tour through your best friend’s hometown, with so many odd anecdotes that one can’t help but be impressed and wish that they were true, however unlikely they may be.

From the sleepwalkers, Maddin moves onto Lil’s Beauty Shop (the hair salon run by his mother and aunt, above which his family lived); paranormal anecdotes about séances and how to “de-spook” a haunted chair; a brothel whose employees are renowned for their politics (there is even a street named after them); and “illicit man pageants” held in a department store. These lead into the most mournful moments of the film: an extended eulogy for the recently razed hockey arena whose destruction was captured on film by Maddin: “Demolition is one of our four growth industries,” the narration cynically explains. Whereas in the beginning Maddin’s chides at Winnipeg were equally fond and defiant, Maddin’s memories of the hockey arena—and other demolished landmarks such as the department store—bear no marks of contempt, only a sincere sense of regret for what the city has let go. Maddin’s character may be leaving Winnipeg physically, but much like the character in I Vitelloni, there is an unbreakable attachment to his home, a sense of fidelity that can never be betrayed, and My Winnipeg is the ultimate expression of that loyalty.