Brilliant Whimsical Film
With "My Winnipeg", director Guy Maddin returns to his absurdly and awkwardly hilarious brand of storytelling (Careful), but also matures with the presence of sentimentality and "personal journey" found in more recent work. The result is a poetic tale and a shameless musing on the ridiculous nature of the way one man and people everywhere live their lives, while still maintaining the absurdity that Maddin does fantastically.
At its weakest the film is propaganda for a city that has fallen from poetry to commercialization, and at its best the film walks the precarious line between artsy pretension and laughing at itself, resulting in something much greater than both. Regardless of what is "real" the film never falls into the precarious realm of "mockumentry". I was fortunate enough to hear Mr. Maddin speak, and it is clear that the grainy footage, imaginative stories, and relationships with Ann Savage are as much a part of him as they are this film.