Guy Maddin’s sophomore feature, Archangel, takes place in a fantastical crossroads of history, in a hamlet in Russia so remote that the twin shocks of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution have only just reached town limits in 1919. Its plot—of a love triangle between a traumatized WWI veteran (Kyle McCulloch), the woman (Kathy Marykuca) he believes is his dead wife, and her own amnesiac husband (Ari Cohen)—offers something of a précis of narrative tropes and themes that would pervade Maddin’s cinema. There’s the juxtaposition of archaic film form with more risqué sexual exhibition, the slipperiness of memory, and a notion of projection heavily indebted to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
Nonetheless, Archangel feels more like a repository of references to the cinema of a hundred years ago than something fully imbued with Maddin’s signature idiosyncrasy. Verohnka, for one, habitually wears a spiky, chintzy crown...
Nonetheless, Archangel feels more like a repository of references to the cinema of a hundred years ago than something fully imbued with Maddin’s signature idiosyncrasy. Verohnka, for one, habitually wears a spiky, chintzy crown...
- 3/11/2024
- by Jake Cole
- Slant Magazine
Guy Maddin’s 1988 feature directorial debut, Tales from the Gimli Hospital, finds the Canadian auteur’s delightfully perverse sensibilities already fully formed. Given the film’s mix of surreal black-and-white imagery, subversive sexuality, and offbeat comedy, as well as its success on the midnight movie circuit, the comparisons to David Lynch’s Eraserhead were inevitable. And yet, anyone who’s seen even a single one of Maddin’s later work can instantly tell that this film couldn’t have sprung from the subconscious of any other filmmaker.
Maddin’s obsession with obscure Canadian folklore is evident right from the get-go, with a title card informing the audience about the 1865 eruption of Askja, a quiescent volcano, that caused many Icelanders to immigrate to Gimli, a small town in Manitoba, Canada. What follows is, like many of the directors other films, a deliriously playful fusion of fact and fiction, with each “historical...
Maddin’s obsession with obscure Canadian folklore is evident right from the get-go, with a title card informing the audience about the 1865 eruption of Askja, a quiescent volcano, that caused many Icelanders to immigrate to Gimli, a small town in Manitoba, Canada. What follows is, like many of the directors other films, a deliriously playful fusion of fact and fiction, with each “historical...
- 6/27/2023
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.