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Tales from the Gimli Hospital review
:. Director: Guy Maddin
:. Starring: Kyle McCulloch, Michael Gottli
:. Running Time: 1:12
:. Year: 1988
:. Country: Canada<
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Directed by Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin, Tales from the Gimli Hospital is a surrealist, iconoclastic film where 1920's cinema meets a strange universe reminiscent of other cinematic UFO's like Eraserhead.
Tales from the Gimli Hospital starts with irony, presented to us as a childhood fairy tale, whereas the account that follows resembles more of a nightmare than bedtime story. Kyle McCulloch plays Einar, a young fisherman who lives in a coastal village where fish, beyond their nutritive role, are used in multiple ways; the most amusing example is fish juice used like shampoo. Falling ill, Einar is found at the Gimli hospital, a barn that the quarantined patients share with the animals. Einar befriends his roommate Gunnar (Michael Gottli), who profits from nurse's favors. After trying in vain to arouse the interest of the nurses, Einar falls into disgrace when one from the shocking secrets he reveals personally affects Gunnar.
Tales from the Gimli Hospital is shot in black and white, and the film was purposely damaged in order to give the film an antiquated, early 20th century feel. The film is certainly wired for sound but Maddin's very visual approach as well as the music openly lean towards silent film. The narrative is intersected with dreamlike sequences that reinforce the strangeness of the ensemble.
Tales from the Gimli Hospital is built on a base made up of fragmented symbols that is difficult to decipher. The religious dimension of film is however obvious. The film mixes Christian, pagan and Indian rites in the center of which the concept of sin is found. Fish, a quasi-spiritual food in the Bible, are deified here. Their omnipresence in this society is witnessed in Gunnar's carvings. They also seem to convey the punishment of the sinners. The entire village suffers from a smallpox epidemic, a sort of divine punishment and Einar, who has committed a sacrilegious act, is not spared. It's only after he has endured the suffering of the disease, a sort of penitence, and Gunnar's retributive impulses that everything seems to return to normal.
Tales from the Gimli Hospital is a perfect example of Guy Maddin's cinema, a work soaked with black humor but difficult to approach, both for the form and the content. One inevitably thinks of Buñuel and Lynch for his surrealist side and also of film pioneers with his aesthetic approach that banishes the superficial aspect of the technological advances and pushes the audience into a corner. By returning to basic cinematography, Maddin re-centers cinema more on the idea rather that representation and he offers an approach without concession that's much more radical than Dogma.
The DVD also contains The Dead Father, Guy Maddin's first short, where the deceased father of a family comes to haunt the everyday life of his son as if nothing happened. Finally, there's Hospital Fragment, a few unedited fantastic minutes Tales from the Gimli Hospital.
Fred Thom
 Reviews of Cult Movies since 2012
Cult Films: 1998 - 2011 Reviews
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