Archangel
Guy Maddin
1990 | 83min | B&W | 35mm
Introduced by Andrew Gutman

"During a frequently overlooked period of military history, Canadian soldiers were sent to remote corners of Russia to resist German aggression in World War I and stave off the Bolshevik revolution. One such soldier, Lt. John Boles, is sent to the isolated northern region of Archangel, where he is surprised to find Veronkha, a woman that so resembles his late wife that he forgets she has died at all. What follows is a web of amnesia, mistaken identity, and misplaced passion that threatens to upstage the war being fought in the background. Guy Maddin’s silent film-flavoured oddity was an important early entry into his idiosyncratic oeuvre, which remains without easy comparison within Canada or anywhere else, employing forgotten cinematic techniques in a way that feels fresh and beguiling even decades later." – Andrew Gutman

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Part of Andrew Gutman's programme, Up North & Underground: Canadian Alternative Film.