riding around forever on an empty tank of gas
Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg... I think I like it more after seeing it than while seeing it. Not that I didn't like seeing it, but the experience of being in the theater watching... the movie feels like that sort of clever montage/voiceover that sets a story in motion, and you keep waiting for the narrative part, the action of the story, the scenes to start happening. They never do; it's all montage and voiceover. It's clever voiceover, and it's Maddin's signature style of montage, and it's all well done and unique, but I kept wondering when it was going to start.
Basically, it played out like a collection of ideas by a truly great writer that were each summed up and then moved past rather than laid out and explored. So while I enjoyed it, and kind of a lot in its way, I just wanted to see more about those horses and a dramatization of their impact on the Winnipegers, for example. The ideas and images were beautiful enough and poignant enough to deserve more lingering than they got, basically; it was an impressive array of ideas in summary and survey, without really spending too long on any one.
So, I liked it, and in retrospect I can marvel more and more at what he put forth for us, but I couldn't love it. (The "liking, not loving" reaction seems to be common for me lately: I wonder if the heat is a factor.)