Starring: Darcy Fehr, Melissa Dionisio, Amy Stewart, Tara Birtwhistle Script: Guy Maddin Running Time: 1:00 Country: Canada Year: 2004 Official Site: Cowards Bend The Knee
Guy Maddin's world is dark & twisted, a projection of traumatic nightmares through a 1920's cinematic lens. The filmmaker's contribution to cinema is unique, clearly making him an outcast—David Lynch might be the closest director he could be compared to.
After having approached different universes—death (The Dead Father), religion (Tales from the Gimli Hospital), vampires (Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary) & even musicals (The Saddest Music in the World)—here Maddin explores his own fantasies. Originally conceived as an art installation called "Peep Show", Cowards Bend The Knee follows a hockey player named Guy—& representing Maddin himself—who gets trapped in some vicious plot involving murder and a hair salon-turned-nighttime-bordello.
By using a character wearing his own name—as well as some members of his family—Maddin has drafted a somewhat biographical fantasy where he has decided to share with us some of his own urges. One won't be surprised to see how weird Maddin's visions are, which of course explains the very nature of his strange body of work. This time the Canadian director has put the emphasis on sexuality and Cowards Bend The Knee can be seen as a metaphor for bisexuality—and obviously his dream of being a hockey champion.
As usual, his film is absurd and surreal, tinted with a perverted and sadistic humor, which will mostly appeal to fans of his work as well as filmgoers with a taste for cinematic adventure. The film is rich in symbolism and requires Freudian analysis to be entirely decrypted. One really can't compare Cowards Bend The Knee to his other films as its experimental and biographical aspect makes it some kind of personal diary rather than a feature film, but it is certainly a worthy entry in his filmography and a unique opportunity to have a glimpse at the inner-Maddin, which says it all.
Cowards Bend The Knee review
