My Winnipeg shows you can't always get away from home

I will film myself out.

So remarks the director (Guy Maddin), as he declares that his escape from this gritty snowy town will only be accomplished from his filming of hatched memories, documented by his own dreamy imaginations, and the accompaniment of some local actors.

My Winnipeg, like a lot of Maddin's previous films (Saddest Music In the World, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary), uses old style filming of the silent times. Iris shots, grainy black and white, throwbacks to a long gone dead film-style era. He uses scenes from times past, and blends in scenes from the present, but you never can distinguish between the two. The other characteristic of Maddin's film is a madness and Eraserhead qwerky-ness that is hard to pin down.

Maddin decides to narrate the film (voiced by another actor) to recreate memories of Winnipeg and describe the cities past where he grew up. What the viewer ends up with is something completely unexpected and difficult to describe. However, once the films gets its bearings (it does have a slow start) the beauty of Maddin's imagery can't be ignored.

It's the vivid imagination that Maddin shows the audience that keeps you captivated. While blaring words appear you are witness to some of the most creative scenes displayed on film. Certainly seeing a batch of dead horses frozen in a river, to a séance that transpires to a dance sequence filled with floating catails and wild grass. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried and Maddin somehow provides a valid explanation for all of it.

Whether you have a hard time determining Maddin's reasoning or truths, and there certainly seems to be a lot of inside jokes that only Winnipegers themselves would get (trust me our writer is an ex-Winnipeger himself), it's an enthralling display of a pseudo-tripout-documentary that you can't say you'll ever forget. You realise within an hour that nobody could ever make a film like this, but somehow... even with the details of being born in a hockey teams dressing room, Maddin has.

Memorable, enthralling... out there... certainly one to see, and definitely something you haven't seen before.