My Winnipeg

Right from it’s opening frames, My Winnipeg establishes itself as a product designed to appeal solely to fans of filmmaker Guy Maddin’s admittedly off-kilter sensibilities – as the movie is rife with all the elements one has come to expect from a Maddin picture (including grainy black-and-white visuals, ceaseless narration, and a distinct lack of plot). Ostensibly a documentary about Winnipeg and Maddin’s upbringing, the film is really just an excuse for Maddin to revel in the precisely the sort of unpleasant excess he’s inexplicably built a career on. As such, My Winnipeg comes off as an almost relentlessly avant-garde piece of work – although the movie does sporadically pick up as Maddin infuses certain sequences with intentionally comedic instances of high melodrama (the re-enactments of his childhood are particularly amusing, admittedly). But Maddin’s in-your-face sense of style effectively keeps the viewer at arm’s length throughout the entirety of My Winnipeg‘s mercifully short running time, and it seems highly unlikely that newcomers to the filmmaker’s oeuvre will find much of anything worth embracing here.

** out of ****