1. ryancarroll88

   10

   What is "My Winnipeg"? Sure, it's easy to dismiss it as an experimental film, but that's like blacklisting it to a future in some storage bin in a modern art museum, which would be a shame. The film claims to be a documentary about Guy Maddin's hometown, Winnipeg, MB. The footage shows what appears to be reenactments of Maddin's childhood, scenes from his family and a speckled history of the town. From the beginning it's obvious that this 'reality' is pure imagination, a fantasy concocted by Maddin, but for what purpose? Why is he trying to escape reality and his hometown that he loves so dearly? The best way to understand is to watch it, accept it as truth like Maddin has, and experience the world as it becomes a much more magical place.… Collapse

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2. BryanR.

   10

   WOW! Guy Maddin is filmmaker who hasn't has his vision stomped by TV or Hollywood -- like the last living real movie director cringing in an ice cave in Canada of all places!… Expand

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3. ChrisP.

   7

   It's watchable and amusing, but incomplete as a work of art. Maddin's voice-over narrative has some witty quips but deflates rather than fueling the romantic/mythic/dreamlike emotional energy he's trying for. The best sequence in the film is a silent recreation of a seance in the Legislature; only for these few minutes is the film allowed to speak for itself and achieve some real emotional impact. For such a visual director, he repeatedly violates the "show me, don't tell me" rule, so that the visuals and narrative don't add to each other but just run side by side, and that loosely. Also surprisingly, there are too few visual ideas in the film; Maddin keeps showing us the same image over and over long after the point has been made. There's some brilliant editing, but the style of the film is monotonous; intensity comes in random fits and starts, but never achieves any momentum or arc. Narratively, there's no insight what makes Winnipeg tick or why its city council makes the famously bad decisions it does, nor why Winnipegers allow those decisions to happen and nurse the feelings of betrayal that they do. Maddin's ironic detachment functions more as a self-protective mask than as an opportunity for critical reappraisal of the sentiments he's expressions. Overall, the whole thing comes across as fairly masturbatory (metaphorically speaking, although there is some fairly cliched stuff about sexual repression in here); one is tempted to think the director isn't interested in anyone's emotions but his own, and is not much in touch with those. There is a lot of potential in this film (it might have worked brilliantly as an all-silent film) but it's an unfinished and art-schoolish, not the work of a mature artist.… Expand

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4. MissyH.

   4

   I felt as if I too were sleepwalking, a theme in this over long film. A 20 minute documentary on the very interesting though questionable subject would have been enough. A feature...not!… Expand

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