Next Stop: My Winnipeg

Guy Maddin films are not for everyone. With his love of silent film flourishes and his often bizarre sense of humor, Maddin can easily confound viewers. To wit: we have a good friend who lives and breathes cinema. He likes his films weird and dark and avant garde. But even he says of Maddin, "I just can't handle the guy."

Well, think again Nick, because Guy Maddin's latest critically-acclaimed film, "docu-fantasia" My Winnipeg has all the features of his standard operating procedure (beautifully gauzy black and white cinematography, psychosexual mother issues), while still finding a way to transcend those trappings by being just a tad grounded in reality. The topic at hand is Maddin's hometown, and as he partnered with Canada’s Documentary Channel, the film is ostensibly true. But amidst all the background on Winnipeg as a city--archival footage of sports teams, landmarks built and destroyed--Maddin includes the city's quasi-history, in which little snowy Winnipeg is the sleepwalking capital of the world and séances are held at the Manitoba Legislative Building.

He then adds on to the myths of the city with reality-bending recollections of his family's history. Maddin revisits his childhood home, and takes it one step further by hiring actors to serve as his siblings in order to recreate pivotal and personal memories. While claiming his domineering mother is merely playing herself, in actuality, it's actress Ann Savage, film noir and b-movie femme fatale who chews the scenery and then some. Though most of My Winnipeg is surreal reinvention and very little of the film is necessarily factual, the emotional honesty and Maddin's overarching, sincere love and affection for his hometown ring true.

My Winnipeg shows at 7 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. tonight and tomorrow at SIFF Cinema.