My Winnipeg book

'I was born on the 28th of February, 1956, at old Grace Hospital,' Canadian archdirector Guy Maddin muses in the new publication My Winnipeg. 'Fifty years later, after the end of a long relationship with a girlfriend, I found myself...right across the street from the old Grace.

As a film, Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, is a semi-stream of consciousness montage of images, stories and outright lies presented as a documentary tribute to Maddin's hometown. To see the script written out in book form, with footnotes by the author accounting for more than half the script's text, is more like reading an epic (or mock-epic) poem than re-reading a screenplay. Which seems odd somehow; I mean, by definition, a companion book should not be able to stand on its own merits.

Since filmmaker Guy Maddin trades so extensively in myth and mystery, it might seem that a companion book to one of his most-lauded works might give away too many secrets. Pulling back the wizard's curtain, as it were.

No worries, though. His new book, My Winnipeg, is just as elusive as the film. It contains an annotated screenplay, movie stills, additional photography and artwork, and promises 'a cornucopia of illuminating arcana.'

The bad news about this book is that Guy Maddin doesn't tell us what's true and what's false about his amazing film My Winnipeg.

The good news about this book is that Guy Maddin doesn't tell us what's true and what's false about his amazing film My Winnipeg.

Those of us who know Winnipeg well still can't be too sure about some of the assertions that Maddin made in his wild, murky, dreamy, hilarious, brilliant film.