My Winnipeg winds its way through the birthplace of personal mythologies, attempting to understand the nature of memory. Equal parts mystical rumination and personal history, city chronicle and deranged post-Freudian proletarian fantasy, My Winnipeg blends local myth with childhood trauma, all narrated with director Maddin's usual entertaining and inspired energy. Commissioned by Michael Burns whose command was 'enchant me with your treatment' this was Maddin's cue to set about exploring the spell of his home town. By mixing animation, archive and re-enactments he has created an extraordinary visual homage in true indivivdual Guy Maddin style. The film won the Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto Film Festival. Special features include an interview with the director, Guy Maddin, at the BFI Southbank.

Synopsis
Canadian director Guy Maddin (THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD) takes his quasi-documentary strain of filmmaking to a satisfying, and deliriously inventive, extreme with MY WINNIPEG. The film follows Maddin, who narrates and plays the character of Darcy Fehr, as he tries to escape the Canadian city of Winnipeg. Maddin grew up in Winnipeg and spent his entire life there. The city seems to be casting a magnetic hold over him, so he decides to film his way out. He moves a cast of actors into his childhood home, asking them to recreate pivotal moments from his upbringing. Here the family gathers to undertake mundane chores and to watch a TV show named 'Ledge Guy'. The show stars Maddin's mother as a woman who tries to stop her son from committing suicide in each episode. Maddin couples these scenes with a warped history of Winnipeg, which include stories of a legendary racetrack fire and the sad tale of the city's ailing ice hockey team.

MY WINNIPEG finds Maddin sticking closely to the filmmaking style that he developed in features such as COWARDS BEND THE KNEE and BRAND UPON THE BRAIN. The film apes silent-era techniques; shots fall in and out of focus; and Maddin uses Super-8, 16mm, and even a cell phone camera to help drive his vision. The B-movie star Ann Savage gives a wonderfully hammy performance as Maddin's mother, and the director's voiceover commentary demonstrates both his fondness for and his frustration with Winnipeg. It's difficult to ascertain how much truth there is in Maddin's recollections of the city's chequered history, but this only adds to the heightened sense of absurdity. MY WINNIPEG is a fine example of Maddin's extraordinary talents, and provides ample proof that he is one of the most resourceful and innovative filmmakers in the independent film scene.

***

If you love movies in the very sinews of your imagination, you should experience the work of Guy Maddin. If you have never heard of him, I am not surprised. Now you have. A new Maddin movie doesn't play in every multiplex, city or state. If you hear of one opening, seize the day. Or search where obscure films can be found. You will be plunged into the mind of a man who thinks in the images of old silent films, disreputable documentaries, movies that never were, from eras beyond comprehension. His imagination frees the lurid possibilities of the banal. He rewrites history; when that fails, he creates it.

First, a paragraph of dry fact. Maddin makes films that use the dated editing devices of old movies: iris shots, breathless titles, shock cutting, staged poses, melodramatic acting, recycled footage, camera angles not merely dramatic but startling. He uses these devices to tell stories that begin with the improbable and march boldly into the inconceivable. My paragraph is ending now, and you have seen how difficult it is to describe his work. I will end with two more statements: (1) Shot for shot, Maddin can be as surprising and delightful as any filmmaker has ever been, and (2) he is an acquired taste, but please, sir, may I have some more?

Excerpt from Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times located HERE

Soda Pictures - Region 2 - PAL

1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 6.45 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

Dual-layered Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video 1080P

Edition Details:
• Guy Maddin career interview at Southbank (55:38 - 1:78 - 16X9)
• 'My Winnipeg - Live in Toronto' (9:01 - 1:78 - 16X9)
• "Winnipeg" Animated Video (2:55 - 4:3)

• "Your Winnipeg" - In Case I Disappear (Simon Aeppli) - 3:07 - 4:3

DVD Release Date: October 27th, 2008
Transparent Keep Case

Release Information:
Studio: Criterion

Aspect Ratio:
Original aspect Ratio 1.33:1

Dual-layered Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video 1080P

Edition Details:

• New conversation between Maddin and art critic Robert Enright (52:12)
• “My Winnipeg” Live in Toronto, a 2008 featurette (9:00)
• Four cine-essays by Maddin from 2014 on various Winnipegiana (Puberty - 1:26, Colours - 1:56, Elms - 2:57, Cold - 3:48)
• Five Maddin shorts, the first three with new introductions by the director: Spanky: To the Pier and Back (1:56 - 3:55, 2008), Sinclair (2:52 - 4:05, 2010), Only Dream Things (2:06 - 19:16, 2012), The Hall Runner (3:21, 2014), and Louis Riel for Dinner (2:52, 2014)
• Trailer (2:09)
• PLUS: An essay by critic Wayne Koestenbaum
 

Blu-ray Release Date: January 20th, 2015
Transparent Blu-ray Case