Cowards Bend the Knee

Canada 2003, 64 minutes, Black and white, silent with intertitles
Dir. Guy Maddin
Rating: [R16]
Genres: Cult / Silent Cinema, Independent

Topics: Arthouse.

Aroview: A true original of contemporary cinema, dir. Guy Maddin here imparts the strange tale of a hockey player beset by monstrous desires, hinging in various ickey ways on incest and sexual taboos, told in a visual pastiche of early cinema aesthetics.

Structured into ten episodes which shift in dreamlike wooziness between hockey-rink, beauty salon and abortion clinic, this achieves a seedy, melodramatic and thoroughly unique atmosphere. Apparently something of an autobiographical statement by Maddin, the film was originally presented as a gallery installation at the Toronto Film Festival.

NZ International Film Festival 2004