In the hands of Maddin, the film plays like no other documentary known to man. In fact, Maddin has taken to referring to his film as a "docu-fantasia," and really this new term is about the only one that applies. Maddin's "My Winnipeg" is not altogether unlike Orson Welles infamous "F For Fake" in that it is at once both a work of fact and fiction.

A life-long resident of Winnipeg, Maddin employs his inimitable style of filmmaking in the telling of what is his most personal story to date-his own.

Even in the film's opening moments, Maddin weaves together a dreamy tapestry of reality and cinema. Maddin acts as his own narrator, wondering aloud what it might be like to one day leave Winnipeg as on screen we see a fictional Maddin (portrayed by actor Darcy Fehr) catching a few Zs on a train out of town. While his fictional counterpart is busy sawing logs. Maddin. our erstwhile narrator, decides to give his hometown one more chance by exploring not only its own strange history but also the crippling neuroses that have barely allowed the real-life Maddin to leave the comforts of his native Manitoba. One part travelogue, one part "Eraserhead," "My Winnipeg" is at once chaotic and cathartic. It's shot in the same dreamy and expressionistic style that Maddin employs in all his films, but it manages to feel the most grounded in present day of any of the increasingly strange films Maddin has directed over the years.

Maddin's resolve to quite literally "film his way out" of his snowy Winnipeg comfort zone carries with it the tangible sense of reality needed to make a documentary work, but also the dreamy fictional aesthetic of the most fanciful works of fiction (best exemplified here in the film's snowy flashbacks to the Winnipeg of yesteryear).

It takes a truly creative (and admittedly slightly cracked) mind to craft a film as strange and ambitious as "My Winnipeg," and it's our strong hope that aficionados of the documentary genre not afraid of a truly unique filmgoing experience will seek Maddin's latest out as it plays film fests across the globe. With Maddin as your friendly but slightly unhinged tour guide, you can't help but admit Winnipeg is an awfully nice place to visit.

C.D.