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| 1. The Saddest Music in the World Director: Guy Maddin | |
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| 2. Careful Director: Guy Maddin | |
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Amazon.com The villagers of Tolzbad have developed repression into an art form: nearly every sentence begins with "Don't," and they slavishly follow a litany of safety guidelines. Desires are equally suppressed, and this precarious equilibrium is fractured when a young villager's Oedipal dreams collide with his dysfunctional family reality. Pandora's box is opened, Tolzbad-style, and Careful turns into a fever-dream of sibling rivalry, forbidden romance, suicide, murder, and delirious cinematic ecstasy. This is Maddin's best and most coherent film, but even so it's hardly for everyone; only the truly adventurous film lover will eagerly follow Maddin on this demented journey, but the rewards are plentiful for those who dare. Many films strive for enduring uniqueness, but few can make that claim as triumphantly as Careful. This is filmmaking on another plane of consciousness--quite simply, a work of art like nothing you've ever seen. --Jeff Shannon Reviews (14)
CAREFUL is a tribute to the great bergenfilms of the Weimar Republic, and is filmed with the same kinds of filmic effects and film stock as those lovely little hallucinations of the silent era. The film is largely about the joys of repression, and what disasters can be brought about without it. If you think I'm being facetious, you're wrong: in Maddin's deliriously offkilter Expressionist universe, every act of curiosity is sure to kill a cat, and everyone else besides.(the film's prologue, which explains all this, is one of the funniest things I've ever seen: "Careful, don't touch that pot!") Maddin's muse, the very gifted Kyle McCulloch, is on-hand as usual. This film can't be explained, but it also shouldn't be missed.
The quality of the film stock, sound and extras provided by Kino Video are excellent.
Guy somehow (and miraculously) manages to sum up the entire history of cinema in his work. While there's much chatter about his obvious retro style, few have noticed his nods to Godard and more recent filmmakers. He may seem to mimic early films with missing frames and soundtrack problems but these "affectations" are ultimately as expressive as the equivalent jump cuts and soundtrack dropouts in Godard's "Alphaville." They're richer too because of the inevitable multiple associations. His amazing short, "Heart of the World" (one of the best shorts I've ever seen) owes as much to modern MTV editing styles as it does to early Soviet cinema (and creates a bridge and dialogue between two seemingly unrelated creative eras). Guy's not an artsy filmmaker, he's just a "guy" who loves movies passionately and works, unselfconsciously, with film's full lexicon.
The film's homage to German expressionism has been widely noted, but Maddin and Toles, no typical film students, are also deeply versed in studio-era Hollywood melodrama (if you don't believe me, see Toles's book of film criticism, "A House Made of Light"), and there's an intriguing family melodrama here underneath the multiple layers of stylization, allusions to the history of cinema, and Maddin's quirky obsessions--with ritual, for example. In other words, it's not all a postmodern in-joke, so if you like your nihilism old-fashioned, based in the self-destructive human psyche--get it here. This is Maddin's best feature film, in my opinion, because it has an hilarious and lucid premise from which the absurdist tragedy logically unfolds, which is also a brilliant psychological trope: in the isolated mountain village of Tolsbad (a metaphor for Canada, duh) the citizens must be careful not to raise their voices above a whisper or cause any other kind of disturbance for fear of causing an avalanche. After watching this film, if you have children or small siblings you may become disturbingly aware of how many times per hour in how many contexts you use the word "Careful!" Should be seen as a double-bill with Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers" for anyone who wants to understand the Canadian psyche--but then again, believe me, you don't.
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| 3. The Guy Maddin Collection (Twilight of the Ice Nymphs / The Heart of the World / Archangel) Director: Guy Maddin | |
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Reviews (5)
"Heart of the World" is a masterpiece and no one seems to dispute that. First time I managed to get a copy I watched it about twelve times in one evening. You'll never get the musical soundtrack out of your head. Go, Guy! I had the pleasure of first seeing "Archangel" during its theatrical release. This is a film that's magical on the big screen. Standout moments (and there are many in this movie) like the bunnies in the battle trenches consistently reach the realm of the sublime. The scratchy, artificially aged soundtrack gives this film a hypnotic quality, perfect for such a dreamlike creation. Another wonderful Maddin product that gets better and better with time. Just a thought: In a world where every creative decision seems to be made by lawyers, marketing drones, stockholders, Harvard MBAs, and a guy named Eisner, or, conversely, angry art-school types on illegal substances (and their fellow-travelers), Guy Maddin, along with the Brothers Quay, Pixar, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) and a handful of others are the keepers of the flame right now.
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| 4. Tales from the Gimli Hospital Director: Guy Maddin | |
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Reviews (18)
"TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL" is the black and white first film from Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin and it reflects the best of the great silent and surrealist directors like F.W. Murnau, Luis Bunuel and Jean Cocteau. Originally released in 1988, this 68 minute nightmare is set during a smallpox epidemic in the village of Gimli, Manitoba, at the beginning of the 20th century. Friends Emar and Gunnar are two male patients who share a hospital room as well as their darkest secrets. Disturbing tales of creeping pestilence, unconsummated passions, envy, necrophilia are told climaxing in a deadly battle between the former friends now rivals. Moody, weird and atmospheric, the Gimli universe has been embraced by the midnight movie circuit and set the director's career in motion. The disc includes a crisp full frame transfer, an impish director's commentary and two of his short films.
Although the story is set in "a Gimli we no longer know", there really is such a place as Gimli, and there is a real Gimli Hospital. The Gimli of the film seems to exist in a time warp in which it is always 2 A.M., 1930; there is a late-night atmosphere over everything, and even the sun seems to give off an artificial light. The production values and the overall look of the film recall the early days of sound films ("White Zombie", "Vampyr", etc.). Maddin has taken great pains to recreate the technical limitations of those old movies, right down to the scratch and hum on the soundtrack. Imagine either SCTV doing a parody of Ingmar Bergman or Ingmar Bergman doing a segment for SCTV-- in fact, in certain shots Kyle McCulloch (Einar) and Michael Gottli (Gunnar) resemble Joe Flaherty and John Candy. There's a great deal of deadpan silliness to this film, but you can't help but like the characters (Gunnar is hapless too); there's no directoral irony that invites us to look down on the cast. This is a film that walks a fine line between honest emotion and kitsch. In that vein, one of the extra features provided with the DVD is the short film "The Dead Father", which has its comedic moments but is ultimately touching and will resonate with those who have lost a family member only to have him or her show up in their dreams. It's a serious film with funny overtones; sort of the flip side of "Tales of the Gimli Hospital". The last ten minutes are especially poignant. Maddin provides a rollicking, often digressive commentary; it may not tell you everything you want to know, but it's a lot of fun to listen to. ... Read more | |
| 5. Dracula - Pages from a Virgin's Diary Director: Guy Maddin | |
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Reviews (6)
The director's comments are OK. Most director's talk too much, and DVDs give them a shameless chance to indulge. But this is worth watching to see how they filmed the ballet. For you film buffs, the guy is using a 16mm Bolex with only 100 feet of film at a time. That means he can only shoot for 20-30 seconds before having to stop and re-crank the clockwork motor! This camera guy really did it old school, and it shows how film making was back in the dawn of cinema. Vampire fans, Film Buffs, & Anne Rice afficianadoes will love this. Just close your eyes during the intertitles....
For those familiar with the novel or the various film versions of "Dracula" that have tried to stay in the vicinity of Stoker's original text, the story picks up in England with Lucy Westernra (Tara Birthwhistle) trying to pick between her three suitors, Dr. Jack Seward (Matthew Johnson), Arthur Holmwood (Stephane Leonard), and Quincy Morris (Keir Knight), not to mention creepy bug-eating Renfield (Brent Neale). When Lucy falls prey to the vampire's curse, Dr. Van Helsing (David Moroni) arrives to teach the unbelievers what to do when someone they love becomes one of the undead. The second half of the ballet deal with the effort by Dracula (Wei-Qiang Zhang) to take Mina (CindyMarie Small) away from her intended, Jonathan Harker (Johnny A. Wright), and the flight back to Castle Dracula. But if Lucy is the pivotal character in the first half the film, and Birthwhistle's performance is the most thrilling in the ballet, then it clearly all comes down to Dracula in the second half. The vampire's final fate will certainly strike a chord with those aware of the more perverse habits of the historical Vlad the Impaler, who served as the inspiration for Stoker's Dracula. Those familiar with the story will have no trouble following along, but the copious use of title cards fill in any and all gaps. Fortunately they become much less frequent in the ballet's climax, where dance becomes the vital medium of expression. Visually, "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" is as fascinating as Abel Gance's "Napoleon" or Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane." Maddin shot the film in black & white on both 16mm and Super 8 stock, used special effects and aging techniques to simulate the grainy and shadowy images of silent films, and tinted frames various colors to accent items. The inside of Dracula's cape and most of the blood in the film appears bright red. Those familiar with the standard techniques of silent films (wipes, iris shots, soft framing, intertitles, tinting) will find that Maddin employs them and then turns them into something more suited to his own tastes (you can listen to the director's audio commentary to get insights into all the strange and weird things he did in putting Mark Godden's ballet on screen, such as using Bram Stoker's text as much as possible for the titles and chocolate syrup for the blood in the opening credits). Maddin avoids sustained shots; there must be at least a dozen cuts in every single minute of this 75-minute film. When you check out the Behind the Scenes segment on the DVD you will see what Winnepig audiences saw on stage with this version of "Dracula," but there are relatively few moments that are recognizable of that production in the film. Shooting the footage was just the first part of the artistic process for Maddin. Fans of the silent cinema may well be more impressed with this film than devotees of the ballet or those who like vampire movies. Not surprisingly the emphasis is on the eroticism inherent in the story that is as important as the horror. The sets for the convent and Dracula's castle invoke the height of German Expressionism, but the soft shapes and curves of the walls also emphasize the sensual. All of this serves as a setting for the sensual dancing. The coy sensuality of Lucy and her beaus because charged with a more overt sexuality when she becomes a vampire, while Dracula's coolness only serves to heighten his raw sexual energy. Fans of the ballet will probably not appreciation all of the hoops Maddin makes them jump through to watch the dancing here, but I think fans of Dracula will really enjoy this bold twist on the old tale.
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