Dir. Guy Maddin
1990, Canada, 82 min
35mm projection
We’ve just had our 35mm projector serviced and are excited to fire it up once again to experience the magic of celluloid! So – we thought we’d bring you something special from our archives… Guy Maddin’s 1990 film Archangel, which Jonathan Rosenbaum called “alternately creepy and beautiful”. Stay tuned for more 35mm screenings.
Archangel is: a tragedy of the Great war; a dreamlike world of long ago lost love; a Goya painting etched in frost. Nestled beneath a white, fluffy blanket of forgetfulness is Archangel, a crystalline city of spires and onion domes. There is a Canadian soldier, a Belgian aviator and a Russian nurse, their minds clouded by mustard gas and the horrors of war, forget whom they are really in love with.
What comes across is a fascinating fetishist delirium, where memories of remote war movies get recycled into something that’s alternately creepy and beautiful.
– Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
From its flickering, inky cinematography to its wavering late 1920’s-style soundtrack, to Veronkha’s kohl-eyed vampish look, the movie is an expert parody of a period movie style.”
– Stephen Holden, New York Times
