Ben Barenholtz (1935-2019) was a legendary producer and exhibitor who was directly responsible, among other things, for the success of ERASERHEAD (1977). Upon meeting the Canadian Guy Maddin, whose ERASERHEAD-ish debut feature TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL (1988) was shepherded by Barenholtz, he asked “Tell me something, son. You’re not all there, are you?” Maddin’s response: “I guess not.”
TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL (1988) Trailer
TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL was made for a reported $22,000 and filmed largely in Maddin’s Winnipeg-based childhood home. Its basis: the Icelandic settlers who staked their claim in Gimli, a municipality of Manitoba that’s depicted in Maddin’s deliberately archaic style, patterned after the transitional sound films of the late 1920s (which reportedly caused great consternation among Gimli’s actual residents).
What Maddin was doing wasn’t entirely new. His fellow countryman John Paizs had been making dark humored old movie pastiches since 1977, yet with TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL Maddin pulled ahead of Paizs to become the face of Winnipeg filmmaking. What distinguished Maddin’s work was his affinity for 1920s filmmaking, which made for a wholly unique Lynchian vision that was honed in subsequent films like CAREFUL (1992), THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD (2003) and THE FORBIDDEN ROOM (2015).
TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL begins in the present day, with two young children (Heather and David Neale) visiting their mortally ill mother in a hospital in Gimli. In order to keep the kids quiet their grandmother (Margaret Anne MacLeod) spins an apparently true tale set in “a Gimli we no longer know.” There “Einar the Lonely” (Kyle McCulloch) and the chubby Gunnar (Michael Gottli) meet in a hospital in the midst of a smallpox epidemic, a disease that in this film is manifested by dark cracks imprinted on the skin.
Einar and Gunnar strike up a fast friendship. They complete for the attentions of a trio of hot-to-trot nurses and relate masochistic tales of personal woe, with Gunnar admitting to having killed his wife Snjofridur (Angela Heck) by giving her smallpox and Einar claiming to have violated the corpse of a beautiful woman—which, the two men quickly deduce, was in fact Snjofridur, a revelation that poisons the relationship. Gunnar and Einar settle the score in an epic butt-pinching match that draws blood, but which ends in a draw, with the two men electing to go their separate ways.
Weirdness is this film’s major driving force, evidenced in a black humored overlay that incorporates laughably overwrought dialogue and an opening title card reading “O Mount Askja! Your Eruptions have put us in Boats and sent us to scar new Lands. But from across the celibate Ocean you cast your nets and haul us back to your smouldering bosom,” paired with a much darker, more disturbing sense of subconscious rupture. The lighting (accomplished with a single light) is harsh and unsubtle, much like that of Maddin’s beloved transitional films—which are further referenced in Maddin’s use of irises, Vaseline-smeared lenses, selective sound (Maddin only uses sound effects if they’re absolutely necessary) and vintage Icelandic folk tunes.
Many of those things were of course brought about by the low budget, but Maddin’s subsequent, more substantially budgeted films prove that they’re integral components of his filmmaking aesthetic. Furthermore, many of TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL’s more bizarre elements, such as the practice of rubbing fish guts into one’s hair and the aforementioned butt pinch-a-thon, are actual Icelandic practices incorporated by Maddin. The takeaway? That Maddin’s vision is so distinct and robust that outside influences serve to enhance rather than detract from it.
Vital Statistics
TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL
Extra Large Productions
Director/Screenplay/Cinematography/Editing: Guy Maddin
Producer: “Snydér” (Stephen Snyder), Greg Klymkiw
Cast: Kyle McCulloch, Michael Gottli, Angela Heck, Margaret Anne MacLeod, Heather Neale, David Neale, Don Hewak, Ronald Eyolfson, Chris Johnson, Donna Szöke, Tiffany Taylor, Linda Schinkel, Jeff Slylo, Randy Kray, Goerge Toles, Carmen Snidal, Brent Neale, Greg Klymkiw