Synopsis
Only Dream Things was part of an installation at the Winnipeg Art Gallery for its centennial in 2012. Collects an assortment of Guy Maddin's own home films from his own youth with many paint on film techniques and digital effects.
Only Dream Things
2012 Directed by Guy Maddin
Director
Genre
Releases by Date
Theatrical
-
Canada
Releases by Country
Canada
07 Feb 2012
- Theatrical
Popular reviews
More-
Falls into that short list of films I've seen that genuinely, honestly feels like being awash in someone else's dreams for a while--the fact that this is DISTURBINGLY PERSONAL to Guy Maddin and I (or anybody else) obviously wouldn't get the same effect from it that he would only adds to that, as does the flickering use of digital effects over old home movie footage. Might have been overwhelming to see in its original life as an art installation. That lighter to the face in the back seat of the car is going to stick with me for a while.
-
When someone dies in my family, revisiting old photographs is how I start to process my grief. It’s been my unofficial job at a few funerals now to gather and scan photos to be compiled into a large slideshow that loops in the background during the memorial. While typically a service offered by the funeral home for a fee, I prefer doing it myself as it’s both cathartic and I do a better job than a stranger could.
The editing seen here reminds me not only of that, but also of the very specific memory of sifting through flooded family photo albums in the summer of 2016, when multiple houses in my family were inundated with several feet of water during historic flooding in Baton Rouge. I managed to save quite a few, but they were never quite the same—many looked like this!
-
“Well it happened one day. He went away.”
An “absurdly personal” catharsis, originally premiering alongside an art installation at a Winnipeg Now gallery show in which Maddin recreated the childhood bedroom he inherited after his brother Cameron died at age 16. The short film that is closest in spirit to My Winnipeg, sharing images of the “white block house” and family home videos. Also calls to mind the song “Up the Wolves” in how it mixes youth tragedy and Greek myth. A chilling piece, and strong evidence for Maddin as one of the era’s most adept mixed-media artists.
-
Maddin's Disintegration Loops, cycling through home video footage and audio clips that become ever more distorted until the film begins to violently undulate in a way that cannot help but feel pointed as the frame stretches and consumes the director's long-dead brother. Elsewhere, a vase of flowers on a mount behind a bed turns from ordinary image to a Gauguin-esque still life that pulses with unreal colors and loosening borders. Eventually, pop songs and snippets of speech give way to a whirring ambient groan as it all vanishes, ending on a superimposition of a grandmother and grandson who died far too closely together.
-
Not recommended for Maddin beginners but if you’re on his wave length this is a very special film. It’s a mood piece completely devoid of narrative, as many of his shorts are, but here he has a bit more room to breath in the run time and he uses it to explore several moods and tones all in the same film. The same images appear in the film several times over, it has a sort of circular structure that folds back in on itself, but the color, degradation, distortion, blur, and most importantly the sound is altered each time they appear so they never hit in quite the same way, they’re able to impart a different mood each time even tho the photography hasn’t changed. It’s an extremely effective and unique experiment. Loved it.
-
We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.
-
هر فیلم همچون آخرین زایشِ پیش از مرگ
دربارهی این فیلم و فیلمهای دیگر گای مدن:
www.fidanfilm.ir/%DA%AF%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%AF%D9%86/ -
-
-
Guess this is the closest it gets to being plunged into the deepest recesses of Guy Maddin's memory and subconscious for twenty minutes. Though it feels like that could apply to most of his films and the title of this could be apt for several. He's gotta be up there with the best for getting that hazy dream atmosphere across. Still haven't seen the majority of his work though, wading in slowly.
-
-
