Weird Winnipeg

I've never been a fan of the art-house style of film. I don't 'get' those film festival staples. I'm not sure why, really, I'm a pretty smart person, I'm knowledgeable about a lot of things and I have an open mind...but that type of movie baffles and bores me.

Paul got the opportunity to work 4 hours of overtime yesterday and 12 today. Poor guy! that means he works 12 days without a break, but we are SO broke and he is SO hardworking, he agreed. I was dreading today, feeling sorry for Paul and thinking of 13 hours alone on a rainy Sunday (for lots of you that sounds like heaven, doesn't it?) so I decided to scroll through Comcast's On Demand features and one of them was 'My Winnipeg' , my former home. To watch the movie was $2 more that the other movies - $6.99. Isn't that INSANE! But I was desperately bored and we haven't rented movies in months so I decided to give it a go. I've been feeling very homesick lately and the blurb about the film indicated that it was 'a tribute' to Winnipeg and 'hysterical'.

Um, no. The creator, Guy Maddin, claims the film is a documentary but its not (his 'mother' in the film is a semi-famous actress). It was just...awful. The movie is almost all in black and white and much of it has fake snow superimposed over top of it. It was depressing and made Winnipeg seem like the worst place in the world. Winnipeg is portrayed as 'quirky' but in a bad way. I normally consider myself pretty well able to separate fact from fiction but I wasn't in this movie, Maddin mixes facts and 'facts' in such a way that I could never tell what was true.

(I didn't know that the Winnipeg Arena was demolished, by the way, and thought at first that that was another of his tall tales, but then he showed it getting destroyed and, holy moly, what an emotional moment! It was the only interesting part of the movie. The arena implodes and people in the background, off camera, are chanting 'Go Jets Go' and I BAWLED with homesickness)

I adore Winnipeg, I think it is one of the most amazing cities in the world. Quirky in a good way, open minded, open hearted and I was sad that this guy was making it out to be an eternally frozen city of misery where we all sleepwalk through our days.

Like I said, I don't get artsy movies and I surely didn't get this one. I suppose it was perhaps 'innovative', I didn't see that though. Please don't waste $6.99 on it like I did.