Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

One of the best works by Guy Maddin. Extremely bizarre and surreal but more accessible than some of his other works. In the same league as "Une Chien Andalou".

I love the negative review down below where the reviewer, in a embarrassingly humorless way, misses the point of this wonderful little film. Oh sure, Gimli's an homage to Murnau and Pabst and whatnot, but what could be funnier and more ironic than a budget self-consciously Canadian filmmaker paying homage to the European Film Canon (He makes lots of Canadian references in his movies). Maddin's films, especially the earlier ones, constantly hint at Canada's, uh, tenuous position in the European cultural mainstream. They are typically Canadian-self-deprecating and his genius is to make great movies with that. When ya got lemons...

Anyway, yeah this is a cheap flick but he makes up for it with incredible imagination, humor, and fantasy. Also, I really don't like the comparisons with Eraserhead--superficially just barely justifiable--but this film, and his others, come from a uniquely different place. Maddin's casting, for example, is entirely different than Lynch's; he casts like he's making an old mainstream movie, not like he's making the most disturbing thing imaginable. Your grandma could watch Maddin films and although she might be confused a bit, she wouldn't be put off by the characters. In a way, Maddin's a deeper and more complex filmmaker, he doesn't rely on weirdness for its own sake too often, it's more a matter of continuously subverted expectations. He's also tons funnier than Lynch and his black humor is far less ugly. Watch, say, Twilight of the Ice Nymphs and you'll see how far from Lynch's mindset this great director is.

This is also a charming movie, in a adult sort of way but absolutely not in a "hip" raunchy/violent modern way. I doubt any American filmmaker could have ever dropped the ego, the portentiousness, the self-conscious hipness, the icky sarcasm, enough to have made anything like this. Kind of like a fairy tale (What am I saying, it is a fairy tale, started by a narrator in Princess Bride fashion). I love this flick!