With deadpan, off-the-wall charm, Manitoban filmmaker Matthew Rankin (Cuc 25 secret screening The Twentieth Century) triangulates a group of interconnected storylines set in a wintry, bleak beautiful Winnipeg. Two kids discover a bank note frozen in a block of ice, which they hope to retrieve to buy their classmates a new pair of glasses. A tour guide brings befuddled visitors on a walking tour of the city’s modest environs. Why is there a store that only sells Kleenex?
Meanwhile and perhaps most cathartically, a melancholy Canadian man (Rankin, portraying himself in what he calls an “autobiographical hallucination”) returns home from Montreal to reunite with his family after many years.
Imagining a city in which Farsi is the predominant language, Rankin’s visually and narratively inventive film was inspired by Iranian films of the 1970’s, frequently humanistic children’s fables, in this case transferred to a world of beige, concrete brutalist buildings and increasing surreal, Jacques Tati-esque humor. If you’re a fan of Guy Maddin, Wes Anderson or early Tim Burton movies, we’d highly recommend this bold, hip, strange and affecting slice of cinematic artistry.