This is a surreal film from Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin, his first feature. The story focuses on the town of Gimli, Manitoba, a long time ago, during an outbreak of smallpox. Two patients in a strange hospital become friends, then deadly rivals. The film is in its own surreal world, with the town of Gimli featuring unconventional behaviour, like the people washing their faces with straw, squeezing the insides of fish onto their heads, rubbing dead birds onto patient's wounds, a weird black-faced minstrel, a cow that lives under a bed, and many fishes that are present in most scenes. It really is a special piece of low budget surreal filmmaking, and is deservedly compared to David Lynch's Eraserhead.
Review of Tales from the Gimli Hospital
