Film Forum

Canada, 1990
Directed by Guy Maddin
Starring Kyle McCulloch, Michael Gottli, David Falkenburg, Michael O’Sullivan
Approx. 82 min.

“Guy Maddin’s sophomore feature, ARCHANGEL, takes place in a fantastical crossroads of history, in a hamlet in Russia so remote that the twin shocks of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution have only just reached town limits in 1919. Its plot—of a love triangle between a traumatized WWI veteran (Kyle McCulloch), the woman (Kathy Marykuca) he believes is his dead wife, and her own amnesiac husband (Ari Cohen)—offers something of a précis of narrative tropes and themes that would pervade Maddin’s cinema. There’s the juxtaposition of archaic film form with more risqué sexual exhibition, the slipperiness of memory, and a notion of projection heavily indebted to Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO” – Slant Magazine

A ZEITGEIST FILMS RELEASE

Trailer

Reviews

“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, The New York Times

“ARCHANGEL [defies] every contemporary cinema convention... for those interested in the wilder possibilities of what film can do, it’s an absolute must.”
– Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times