Maddin, Guy
Cowards Bend the Knee
Type:
Drama, Portrait
Date: 2003
Length: 64:00
Process:
Country:
Languages: English
Synopsis
Jam-packed with enough kinetically photographed action to seem like a never-ending cliff-hanger, Guy Maddin's tremendous Cowards Bend the Knee is a Feuillade serial ultra-condensed and blenderised, as ghostwritten by Euripides. If fiction is sometimes barely disguised autobiography, Cowards is its mirror image, twisted and poisoned wish-fulfillment: the mythomaniacal Maddin casts 'himself' (actually, Darcy Fehr) as a hockey sniper made lily-livered by mother and daughter femme fatales, and resurrects his father as the team's radio broadcaster and his own romantic antagonist. Set in a shadow-suffused hockey arena and a Mabuse-like beauty salon-slash-abortion clinic lined with two-way mirrors, the plot drips with the Grecian formula, as sordid family secrets spawn unintentional murder most foul.
Veering into penny dreadful territory with the introduction of a vengeful ghost and uncontrollable extremities as windows into the unconscious, Maddin evokes the expressionist classic The Hands of Orlac, and channels the editing style of Austrian avant-gardist Martin Arnold; Maddin fixates on his character's groping and fisting expressionist paws, bathing them in ethereal light and chopping them into dazzling, iris-heavy micro-montages. Room to pant is provided by slo-mo replays, alternately poignant and explosive: lurid, frenzied moments of impulsive violence and carnivorous sexuality lend this bewitchingly onanistic work the sublime naughtiness of an antique hand-cranked skin flick. It all takes place, after all, within a drop of sperm. Originally presented as an installation in ten peepholes at Toronto's Power Plant gallery and the 2003 Rotterdam Film Festival (where it won a special mention from the FIPRESCI jury), and now receiving its Canadian theatrical debut, Cowards demands serious consideration as a major work of art by Canada's most self-deluded cinephile.
Credits
Director
Maddin, Guy
Music
Maddin, Guy
Editor
Maddin, Guy
Screenplay
Maddin, Guy
Production Design
Maddin, Guy
Sound
Maddin, Guy
Cinematographer
Maddin, Guy
Producer
Maddin, Guy
Details
Shoot Format
Maddin, Guy
Sound Properties
Maddin, Guy
Techniques
Maddin, Guy
Awards