Bea Swanson
This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Roy Hart
If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Yash Wade
Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
Michael Mendez
Here it goes: These reviews have to be the hardest to write. The kind that are done for a favorite director, but not really from their best of work. Guy Maddin has impressed me, beyond belief, this year. Everything he makes is so original/unique and in his very own style/theme. One thing is for sure though, he can always make me laugh regardless of how the story turns out.In this story, the sun never sets in the land of Mandragora, which is Peter Glahn's (our hero) homeland. One day on the boat ride back HOME, his heart is stolen by a woman, Juliana Kossel, who plays dirty mind games with him. Sucking him into a world of confusion and angst.~~Honestly, this film was a real let down for me, but I only say that "at this moment." - It really is one of those movies that you would have to be in a certain mood to enjoy. That is not the best a traits, but I got through it. I have to mention that the picture/color and the set designs/costumes were extremely phenomenal. Very bright; vibrant and pleasure-filled colours throughout the entire movie. Sort of like a Georges Méliès film in that sense, but if it were to be shot in a modern-day color- camera and if it was remastered. Another element this film carries is dubbing. The dialogue throughout this whole story is dubbed in. This may be annoying to some people, but I find it very fun and as long as you know it is Shelly Duvall's voice speaking for herself, it is all good.**You cannot help but smile while viewing this movie. My favorite line is in the middle when Peter tosses Juliana's shoe out in the lake while they're on a boat. She subtly kneels down and lets free her other shoe saying:"The shoe belongs to the lake now. I have no use for it. Perhaps little men will now row you back to shore."Ha! What a line. Sounds like something from the mind of Guy Maddin, but it's not. In fact, I don't believe he written this fairytale script. I am sure he had some say in it, but the screenwriter for the project was a Mr. George Toles. What a surreal mind; my kinda guy. He usually co-writes on Maddin's stuff, but this one he probably had his first shot. Uh-oh.I give this Guy Maddin film a depressing 3.5 out of 5 stars. I may change it later, when I am in a better place to watch it. As for now, I was hoping better from the Canadian wizard. I will give it a Sexy Orange Heart, though.
tedg
There's a blood vessel that pumps between the selves we drive through the day and the incubus we nourish, a creative self (perhaps cocreated by a love), relatively unconstrained, who we promise ourselves we will birth some day.The most sublime art is what we imagine that young, more unfettered mind imagines. Its why we live, a large part of it, I think.This is the domain Maddin has decided to explore. Its a sort of Joycean commitment, a raw commitment to dreams less shaped than usual by borrowed items and fed by distilled urges in blood. Small surprise that these don't fully resonate; its supposed to be strange, strange in disturbing ways.I like the fact that this goes on too long. It has to go on long enough to plainly state that you are not a tourist, instead you've unknowingly entered something you can never really leave.In its general shape, it is "The Tempest" meets the "Sarrogossa Manuscript" visually flavored by Max Parrish.It has dreams within dreams and as they shift different controlling or dreaming minds move to the foreground, even a statue (us). There are sexual enchantments, shifting from honesty and deceit, knowing and manipulated. There's a Prospero and a Miranda, a Bloom/hunter who dreamhunts.I think if you are serious about self, then you will be about film and that will lead you to Maddin and eventually to this. It isn't his most virile vision, but you can sure see what's going on. And that's worth something.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
scarletminded
Spoilers perhaps.This is a wonderful movie that plays like a poem. The color is strong and overbearing. The situations are odd and dreamy. The characters are Fellini-esque and lovely.The DVD commentary on this film is very information and heck, I just like to hear Guy Maddin talk. His idea of metaphor like when the shovels are hovering by the girl's head in one scene is both sick and funny.If you like interesting directors like Lynch, The Brothers Quay, Cocteau or Hitchcock, Maddin is the guy for you. I have a goal to watch all his films, both long and short. I am so addicted to his work, I am so surprised to find only a few comments here about this film. Maddin should be more known!I love his use of older technique and Victorian/silent movie values with a modern twist.
mifunesamurai
This surreal fairytale setting and the campy dialogue doesn't sustain for a full 90 minutes. You are swept away during the first half on heavy soft filtered images with exploding colors but soon come to shore as the movie winds down, getting us all ready for bed.
