Taking inspiration from \u2013 and a great many liberties with \u2013 the life and political career of William Lyon Mackenzie King, the tenth Prime Minister of Canada, Rankin sets his film on the cusp of the 20th<\/sup> century, when the very fate of the country hangs in the balance. Using minimalist sets and expressionistic backdrops, Rankin paints a starkly surreal portrait of the country\u2019s major metropolises. There\u2019s Toronto, the industrialized seat of power where aspiring politicos go to school to learn the ins and outs of governing such a passive-aggressive nation; Quebec, the land of peace and harmony, where residents and visitors alike ice skate everywhere; the \u201cfleshpots\u201d of Winnipeg, a veritable wasteland where all manner of kinks and sexual hang-ups are catered to; and Vancouver, where deviants go, paper bag on head, to be purged of their unnatural desires. Of course, that\u2019s the only kind Mackenzie King (Daniel Beirne) appears to have since he\u2019s disconcertingly close to his mother (played by Maddin regular Louis Negin in drag), whose visions of his political ascension have driven him all his life, and can only achieve sexual release while huffing women\u2019s shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To create Canada\u2019s varied landscapes on a tiny budget, Rankin employs all manner of old-school techniques including forced perspective, animation, and matte paintings and backdrops. (An accomplished artist, he storyboarded every shot so his crew knew precisely how much to build to achieve the effects he wanted.) His interior sets are also highly stylized, from King\u2019s mother\u2019s bedchamber, with its curtained four-poster bed and multitude of locks on the door to keep her husband out, to the Dickensian tuberculosis ward where King visits a sickly little girl who believes fervently in his dream of becoming Prime Minister, to the Onanist Sanitarium of the sinister Dr. Wakefield (Kee Chan), whose questionable treatment methods border on the medieval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout, Rankin indulges in absurdist imagery like the phallic cactus King is given early on to remind him to remain pure of body in the bedroom (when he doesn\u2019t, its tip erupts like, well, exactly what you think) and the shady moneylender with a cactus for a hand who ruins his father. And when Canada gets dragged into the Boer War by the militaristic Lord Muto (Se\u00e1n Cullen), who just so happens to be the father of the woman King has fallen in amour fou<\/em> with, naturally the enemy is depicted with elephant faces. In truth, there are so many bizarre elements at play in The Twentieth Century<\/em> that to list them all could make it seem impossibly overstuffed and incoherent. (I haven\u2019t even mentioned the baby seal clubbing competition or the betrothal ceremony that involves guiding your blindfolded fianc\u00e9e across an ever-shifting ice floe only by the sound of your voice.) However, Rankin\u2019s tight control of every aspect of his production means it all winds up being of a piece. A deliriously odd piece, to be sure, but a piece nonetheless. (Screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival; U.S. release by Oscilloscope Films TBA but will include Trevor Anderson’s short <\/em>Docking, which is also worth your time. )<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Winnipeg, Canada, has produced more than its share of strange and singular filmmakers. Guy Maddin is likely the most well-known, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":12809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340,1381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/crookedc.png\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\n1 hr., 30 min.; not rated<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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