Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988)

Directed by

Guy Maddin

Genre

drama film, fantasy film

Country

Canada

Runtime

1h 04m

Rating

5.9 of 10 from 32 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A lonely fisherman named Einar is sick with smallpox in a hospital. He competes with another patient for the attention of young nurses.

black-and-whiteslow-paceddreamlikequirkymelancholicintimatesurrealdeadpan

What happens

Tales from the Gimli Hospital is a 1988 Canadian film directed by Guy Maddin. His feature film debut, it was his second film after the short The Dead Father. Tales from the Gimli Hospital was shot in black and white on 16mm film and stars Kyle McCulloch as Einar, a lonely fisherman who contracts smallpox and begins to compete with another patient, Gunnar (played by Michael Gottli) for the attention of the young nurses. Maddin had himself endured a recent period of male rivalry and noticed that he found himself "quite often forgetting the object of jealousy" and instead becoming "possessive of my rival." The film was originally titled Gimli Saga after the amateur history book produced locally by various Icelandic members of the community of Gimli (Maddin himself is Icelandic by ancestry). Maddin's aunt Lil had recently retired from hairdressing, and allowed Maddin to use her beauty salon (also Maddin's childhood home) as a makeshift film studio (Lil appears in the film briefly as a "bedside vigil-sitter in one quick shot [taken] just a couple of days before she died" at the age of 85). After Maddin's mother sold the house/studio, Maddin completed the remaining shots of the film at various locations, including his own home, over a period of eighteen months. Maddin received a grant from the Manitoba Arts Council for $20,000 and often cites that figure as the film's budget, although also estimates the actual budget between $14,000 and $30,000. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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