Twilight of the Ice Nymphs

This movie is really odd. I saw this movie when it previewed in Dallas Texas at the AMC movie theaters, Shelly Duvall was there in person. . A very nice lady. After the movie ran, she walked to the front of the theater to talk about the film. The host or interviewer said 'I have a question, Shelly? What was that?" She looked very embarrassed and said " Well, i guess this is the kind of movie you do for experience.' Yeah. as if this seasoned actress needs the experience. anyway I felt sorry for her as she was being told what the audience had experienced was a very strange film that was not all that great. All i have to say is there is a lot of beauty in the film, though it is kind of odd. i didn't really like or dislike the film. It was sort of a fairy tale gone to mars or something.-Thanks.-

Here it goes: These reviews have to be the hardest to write. The kind that are done for a favorite director, but not really from their best of work. Guy Maddin has impressed me, beyond belief, this year. Everything he makes is so original/unique and in his very own style/theme. One thing is for sure though, he can always make me laugh regardless of how the story turns out.

In this story, the sun never sets in the land of Mandragora, which is Peter Glahn's (our hero) homeland. One day on the boat ride back HOME, his heart is stolen by a woman, Juliana Kossel, who plays dirty mind games with him. Sucking him into a world of confusion and angst.

~~

Honestly, this film was a real let down for me, but I only say that "at this moment." - It really is one of those movies that you would have to be in a certain mood to enjoy. That is not the best a traits, but I got through it. I have to mention that the picture/color and the set designs/costumes were extremely phenomenal. Very bright; vibrant and pleasure-filled colours throughout the entire movie. Sort of like a Georges Méliès film in that sense, but if it were to be shot in a modern-day color- camera and if it was remastered. Another element this film carries is dubbing. The dialogue throughout this whole story is dubbed in. This may be annoying to some people, but I find it very fun and as long as you know it is Shelly Duvall's voice speaking for herself, it is all good.

**You cannot help but smile while viewing this movie. My favorite line is in the middle when Peter tosses Juliana's shoe out in the lake while they're on a boat. She subtly kneels down and lets free her other shoe saying:

"The shoe belongs to the lake now. I have no use for it. Perhaps little men will now row you back to shore."

Ha! What a line. Sounds like something from the mind of Guy Maddin, but it's not. In fact, I don't believe he written this fairytale script. I am sure he had some say in it, but the screenwriter for the project was a Mr. George Toles. What a surreal mind; my kinda guy. He usually co-writes on Maddin's stuff, but this one he probably had his first shot. Uh-oh.

I give this Guy Maddin film a depressing 3.5 out of 5 stars. I may change it later, when I am in a better place to watch it. As for now, I was hoping better from the Canadian wizard. I will give it a Sexy Orange Heart, though.

This surreal fairytale setting and the campy dialogue doesn't sustain for a full 90 minutes. You are swept away during the first half on heavy soft filtered images with exploding colors but soon come to shore as the movie winds down, getting us all ready for bed.

I CAN'T BELIEVE this was produced in 1997. This is worse than the old 80's fantasy/adventure movies. The production quality and acting leave a LOT to be desired. Very low quality production - worse than I expected for the late 90s. Not even wide-screen!

There's a blood vessel that pumps between the selves we drive through the day and the incubus we nourish, a creative self (perhaps cocreated by a love), relatively unconstrained, who we promise ourselves we will birth some day.

The most sublime art is what we imagine that young, more unfettered mind imagines. Its why we live, a large part of it, I think.

This is the domain Maddin has decided to explore. Its a sort of Joycean commitment, a raw commitment to dreams less shaped than usual by borrowed items and fed by distilled urges in blood. Small surprise that these don't fully resonate; its supposed to be strange, strange in disturbing ways.

I like the fact that this goes on too long. It has to go on long enough to plainly state that you are not a tourist, instead you've unknowingly entered something you can never really leave.

In its general shape, it is "The Tempest" meets the "Sarrogossa Manuscript" visually flavored by Max Parrish.

It has dreams within dreams and as they shift different controlling or dreaming minds move to the foreground, even a statue (us). There are sexual enchantments, shifting from honesty and deceit, knowing and manipulated. There's a Prospero and a Miranda, a Bloom/hunter who dreamhunts.

I think if you are serious about self, then you will be about film and that will lead you to Maddin and eventually to this. It isn't his most virile vision, but you can sure see what's going on. And that's worth something.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.