“While not a commercial success elsewhere, ‘Careful’ single-handedly saved a struggling art-house cinema in Missoula, Montana. Sell-out crowds filled the house twice every night for two weeks.” - The Films of Guy Maddin. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2000.Guy Madden’s world is subjective, distorted, evocative, radically emotional, and rich with swoon. His attack on storytelling is deeply indebted to the language and spirit of the first cinema. He creates timeless artifacts (if a bit showy) seemingly unearthed from frozen far north vaults, yet humming with sly contemporary sensibilities.Here his characters seek meaning and purpose, roaming a narrative that is purposeless and meaningless. They struggle to live and die by codes of honor and ideals of human behavior that their own chaotic brains cannot consistently adhere to and that the irrational universe does not recognize.They hope to exist timidly, in their quiet culture, beneath a waiting avalanche easily triggered by the slightest passion, but like you and I, they long to scream. And that can’t possibly end well for any of us.
