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| GUY MADDIN on his Longtime Producer GREG KLYMKIW: "As roommates, occasional nude sightings are inevitable. One day I spied Greggy sleeping naked, his posterior facing me. He looked like one of those cute clubbed baby seals." |
Dir. Ryan McKenna
Starring: Greg Klymkiw, Guy Maddin, George Toles, Bruce Duggan, Tracy Traeger, Dave Barber, Matthew Rankin, Patrick Lowe
Review By Greg Klymkiw
It's a grey day in Toronto. What other days can there be in the capitol of Canadian pole-up-the-ass presbyterianism? The camera focuses in tight on the scowling face of a moustachioed, chain-smoking misanthrope in a dog park. Someone off-camera interrupts his interview to compliment him on his off-camera dog. "Yeah," he mutters under his breath. "Really nice dog I have here. Come a little closer and she'll take your fuckin' stupid hand off."
This is Greg Klymkiw - film producer, writer and long-time senior creative consultant at Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre - and he's the subject of Ryan McKenna's one-hour documentary about the early days of Winnipeg's prairie post-modernist new wave of indigenous, independent cinema. Blending interviews with the man himself, friends, colleagues and a generous supply of film clips and archival footage, McKenna presents a funny, unbridled portrait of the curmudgeonly film obsessed pioneer of indie production in the middle of nowhere - Winnipeg.
The movie follows Klymkiw's life as a North End lad who alternated between programming rep cinemas, buying films for small town movie theatres, writing uncompromising (and according to screenwriter George Toles, "incendiary") film reviews, conceiving, producing and starring in the perverse community cable cult hit "Survival", producing all the great early films of Guy Maddin and John Paizs and last, but not least, creating an entire mythology around the films being made in Winnipeg as the Director of Distribution and Marketing for the Winnipeg Film Group wherein he masterminded a marketing campaign to bring the films of Winnipeg to the entire world.
Okay, I'm sure you've gathered I'm reviewing a movie that's about, uh, me. It's a strange thing to do, but I have to admit that even though it is about me, I can genuinely attest to its quality, entertainment value and the filmmaking prowess of the talented young director Ryan McKenna who insanely decided I was worthy of my own documentary portrait.
When I first saw the finished product, to say I was delighted and flattered is an understatement. However, I needed to know myself, if the movie was really any good. So, I girded my loins and applied every single element of critical analysis that I'd volley mercilessly upon the shitloads of films I had to mentor at the Canadian Film Centre over thirteen years. The results of this stripping-away of my biases were, I'm happy to report, successful enough to be able to proclaim that, yes indeed, it's a fucking terrific little movie - especially for anyone interested in making independent, indigenous films in the middle of the second armpit of Canada (the first smelly, hairy armpit being Regina).
The real proof in the pudding for me was watching the film with a few audiences. Good deal here. Big laughs were had by all, pretty much from beginning to end.
The most important thing to note, though, is that Survival Lessons: The Greg Klymkiw Story is playing within the context of a film festival co-presented by SPUR, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival and the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque as part of the ongoing series entitled "Forgotten Winnipeg". The film fits the thematic elements of this event like a glove. We're essentially dealing with a biographical portrait that wallows in the mythology of a guy (me) who loves mythology so much that he spends most of his professional life as someone who creates mythologies of all kinds and is finally a proponent of the famous credo John Ford proclaimed loudly and clearly at the end of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: When the truth becomes legend, what do you ultimately print. The legend or the truth?
The legend, of course.
You never let the truth get in the way of telling a good story. McKenna expertly plays with this throughout and as such, creates a pretty indelible portrait of friendship, mutual love for cinema, the absurd and finally, the realties of actually making and marketing movies that nobody cares about - until, of course, someone creates an atmosphere of "must-see" that lays down a fluffy, inviting blanket for all to dive into with relish and anticipation.
So, if you're in the 'Peg this week, you could do a lot worse than spend money on seeing this.
"Survival Lessons: The Greg Klymkiw Story" plays at the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque Thu Jan 30, 2014 at 7:00 PM. Get tickets and more info HERE. Oh yeah, Greg Klymkiw (uh, me) will be there in the flesh to provide added entertainment value.