Cowards Bend the Knee

Guy Maddin's 2003 film was made not for cinemas but as an installation to be watched through ten separate peepholes in a gallery. It therefore consists of ten chapters, each carrying a short crisis of its own. The story follows a hockey player who bears Maddin's own name. He takes his girlfriend to an abortion clinic that also operates as a hair salon and brothel. There he falls in love with another woman, who tells him she will let no man touch her until her father's murder is avenged. The film is silent, black and white and deliberately aged. The narrative mixes material from psychoanalysis and Greek tragedy with melodrama; a hand transplant, ghosts and revenge can share a scene. Maddin presents it as autobiography, which is a joke in itself. Who it's for: those who know experimental cinema and Maddin's style. Who it's not for: viewers who want a narrative to follow; the film is deliberately scattered, fast and unexplained.