CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

ArsLonga didn't think i wanted to watch this when it came on in the wee hours on sundance 2 nights ago; i needed some sleep. after 90 seconds, i was hooked. i was so stunned by this film that all i could think was, 'clearly a work of genius,', 'the heck with sleep,' and, 'why didn't i set the VCR?!' cinema and i go way back, way even before college in Paris and the cinematheque in the 1970s, and i rated it a 9, the only time i've ever given my own highest rating to a film here. although Mr. Maddin might not appreciate the comparison, i think his body of work shows a creative mind in league with Woody Allen, in terms of switching genres and excelling most of the time. Billy Wilder is another example that comes to mind. bold risk-takers, all. i just wish i were better to articulate my thoughts on this.bravo!

Polaris_DiB Understand that I'm getting a bit tired of people comparing every strange movie that comes along to a David Lynch film too. Unfortunately, Lynch is the norm and just about one of the most accessible strange filmmakers out there, so sometimes the comparison is needed for a starting point, like in this case.This movie is, roughly speaking, the story of a swinging hockey player who gets entrapped in a bunch of relationships, including most prominently one with a scarred daughter who wants her father's death revenged. Her father's killer? Her mother. It includes but is not limited to perverse sexuality, weird psychoses, and severed arms.It's shot in black and white and is a silent film, which creates for it a sort of removed surreality/abstractness which is, honestly, reminiscent of Eraserhead and Lynch's Lumiere and Company short.What makes it Maddin's, though, is the use of imagery from his childhood (the barbershop, the hockey players, etc.) set to a blatant sexuality which goes beyond just being blatant but enforces it: you see the sexual image, and then the words follow saying exactly what you were thinking. No more subtlety and deranged fetishes, this is straight-forward Freud and primal scene.Because of this, this film as a whole remains true to itself and never lets go of its own private Universe, one that we could never live in and yet, terribly, can relate to, figure out, and eventually even understand.Beyond that, there's not much that can be talked about this movie besides the fact that it there's no common approach to it. It has no genre (besides maybe Silent film) and is disconcerting, requiring a certain level of viewer interaction that most movies don't ask for. For fans of strange and insane cinema, it's great; for anybody looking to be entertained, this is most definitely not for you.--PolarisDiB

bob the moo In a version of his life, Maddin tells us the tragic story of how the young Guy was once a great ice hockey player with the Maroons, until his girlfriend got into 'trouble'. A visit to a hairdressers-come-bordello-come-abortion clinic leads Guy to fall for Meta, the daughter of the bordello owner Liliom. However Meta wants revenge on her mother and her lover (Shaky – Guy's friend) for the murder of her father (who's blue hands she still has in a jar). A sinister 'transplant' by Dr Fusi, sets Guy on the road to destruction – all for the 'joy, joy, joy of finding love'.I saw this film at a film night recently dedicated to showing several of Maddin's short films and this semi-feature. Despite the event being a little amateurish in its organisation, with a late start and 20 minutes spent watching a band tidy up in front of the screen, I enjoyed the evening and was glad for the chance to see several of the films for the first time. This film was the one I had actually come to see, but I didn't know anything about it and I wondering if Maddin would do his usual selective-substance thing over the whole 60 minutes. This I consider to be a problem with his shorts – sometimes, unless you are really aware of his influences then you'll struggle to get the substance of the short (kind of like watching Shrek without any knowledge of popular culture – you just wouldn't know what it was trying to do). However, the visuals are always impressive and even someone with only a passing knowledge of the silent movie period should be able to enjoy the sheer imagination and flair that Maddin directs with.With 'Cowards' I didn't have to worry long; after a first scene that seems to set the whole story within a drop of sperm the film manages to retain Maddin's usual flair of the weird as well as setting up a story that is an enjoyable narrative flow – in other words, you're not riding on influences and style for the whole hour. Far from the case; in fact this film is funny, weird, engaging and just plain great! This is not to say that the story takes place in the real world – it doesn't, it is still very weird and strangely comic/weird but it still hangs together. The stretch to an hour shows a little bit towards the end but I still really enjoyed it.The cast do a great job acting considering they are never heard (it's silent of course!) and they emulate the silent era acting really well. Fehr's Guy is great and he delivers the comic lines (well – 'cards') as effectively as he does the darker stuff. Dionisio is great and conveys so much with her face and, it must be said, a fantastically gorgeous face it is too! Stewart has less of a presence in a smaller role but Birtwhistle is funny as the oversexed mother and support is good from Negin (sinister), Evans (all-American) as well as a few of Maddin's own family members.Overall this is a great film but one that will put many viewers off by the nature of its content. It is dark, it features full male nudity and it is totally silent – with dialogue cards that have French subtitles. To understand what I'm saying you really need to see (experience) it for yourself but take it from me: I am the first to highlight the weaknesses in substance with Maddin's shorts but here he has a good narrative that sacrifices none of his visual style and feel of the weird, wonderful, dark and comic. A brilliant film that is worth hunting down.

paulduane Well, this is quite probably one of the most uncategorisable films I've seen - you couldn't possibly call it a comedy, with its beauty salons that moonlight as abortion clinics/brothels, and its disturbingly self-lacerating portrait of the director as a cowardly lecher and cold-blooded murderer. But parts of it are hilarious. Go figure. In brief, the plot concerns Guy Maddin, hockey player for the Winnipeg Maroons, who takes his pregnant girlfriend to the above-mentioned clinic for a termination and then leaves her (literally in the middle of the procedure) for the brothel-keeper's beautiful daughter, played with incandescent and slightly scary intensity by Melissa Dionisio (that surely cant be her real name, can it?) only to discover that she can't allow herself to be touched by a man's hands (an uncharacteristically direct quote from Lon Chaney's 'The Unknown') until her father's murder has been avenged. And then she produced the jar in which she keeps, preserved, her father's hands... After that we get a twist on that old chestnut 'The Hands of Orlac', combined with a surprisingly explicit dose of sexual excess and weird psychology, as young Guy ends up in deep trouble of every sort imaginable, through his own inability to control his lusts. Told in ten chapters of six minutes apiece, this was intended as a gallery installation but it works just fine as a movie. As long as you don't mind a regular dose of jawdropping strangeness and a large splash of shocking, unfathomable directorial masochism.