Short of the Week: A Guy Maddin masterpiece
Among the most respected auteurs from the unique landscape of Canadian cinema, Guy Maddin is a true visionary. Having developed a widespread global following due to incredible works such as The Saddest Music in the World and My Winnipeg, Maddin has attracted serious critical attention as well as praise from film fans. For this edition of our Short of the Week feature, we have decided to highlight Maddin’s wonderful gem, The Heart of the World.
Throughout his journey as a filmmaker, Maddin has always cited the influence of pioneering filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel and David Lynch. In addition to contemporary experimental cinema that undoubtedly shaped his artistic sensibilities, Maddin has also maintained a lifelong passion for lost works from the silent era and has regularly utilised their unique aesthetic frameworks to create innovative visual presentations in his own films.
One of the greatest examples of his love for silent film is The Heart of the World, a bizarre short made for the 2000 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. It tells the story of two brothers who engage in a competition to win the heart of the woman they love – Anna. While they are busy vying for Anna’s heart, she is too preoccupied with our planet’s core. According to her discoveries, the heart at the centre of the world is in danger of a disastrous heart attack.
During a conversation with Offscreen, Maddin named The Heart of the World as the film he was most satisfied with. He explained: “The one movie I made that turned out exactly as I planned was The Heart of the World. I think Cowards Bend the Knee turned out better than I thought it would. And I think the first movie that I was genuinely terrified of going into, and really fought while making but was pretty pleased with the outcome, was Careful. I’d never worked in colour before; things like that felt like I was really growing by leaps and bounds each time out.”
However, the filmmaker insisted that he wasn’t proud of any of his works and cited the example of Buñuel, who famously couldn’t watch his own films more than a couple of times. Maddin added: “He knew what he’d made and had to move on, and I understand that now because I’m always just stinging at the end of a movie with regret and second-guesses and desires to re-shoot things and re-do things, which you can’t do. So I’m always thinking of what to do next. I guess that would be my official answer—I guess I’m not really proud of any of them, and I’m still hoping to make a really good one someday.”
The Heart of the World is a devilishly fun film, featuring the riveting score by Georgy Sviridov, which will always be associated with the Soviet era. Drawing on Eisenstein’s montage theory and making the editing as punchy as possible, Maddin created an eternal homage to one of the most important movements in film history.
Watch the film below.
