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Meet the Guy Maddin-esque gonzo film­mak­er chal­leng­ing Cana­di­an identity

14 Oct 2019

Words by Justine Smith

Image depicts a scene from a theatrical production or film, with several actors on stage in period costumes. The stage is decorated with a starry backdrop and neon-coloured panels, creating a vibrant and dramatic visual effect.
Image depicts a scene from a theatrical production or film, with several actors on stage in period costumes. The stage is decorated with a starry backdrop and neon-coloured panels, creating a vibrant and dramatic visual effect.
Direc­tor Matthew Rankin dis­cuss­es his exper­i­men­tal debut fea­ture The Twen­ti­eth Century.

Film­mak­er Matthew Rankin describes his debut fea­ture as a Her­itage Minute from Hell”. For those unfa­mil­iar with the long-run­ning Cana­di­an series, Her­itage Min­utes are a col­lec­tion of short films depict­ing impor­tant moments in the nation’s his­to­ry, such as Dr Wilder Penfield’s dis­cov­er­ies in neu­ro­science (a per­son­al favourite, he lit­er­al­ly poked at liv­ing people’s brains) and the con­struc­tion of the hock­ey are­na Maple Leaf Gar­dens in Toron­to. Rankin says that Her­itage Min­utes as Canada’s white ele­phant’ art and his films are the ter­mites dig­ging and fight­ing to expose their sin­is­ter underbelly.

Rankin was born and raised in Win­nipeg but has spent a lot of time liv­ing and work­ing in Que­bec. He’s asso­ci­at­ed with the Win­nipeg Film Group and has a sim­i­lar style as Guy Maddin. With a back­ground in his­to­ry and ani­ma­tion, he uses cel­lu­loid, avant-garde tech­niques and expres­sion­is­tic mon­tage in his films, which include shorts like The Tes­la World Light and Tab­u­la Rasa, star­ring the synth pop artist Grimes.

The Twen­ti­eth Cen­tu­ry, which recent­ly pre­miered at Quebec’s Fes­ti­val du Nou­veau Ciné­ma in one of Canada’s old­est cin­e­mas – an appro­pri­ate venue for this time-bust­ing vision – is a gonzo retelling of the ear­ly days of Canada’s tenth prime min­is­ter, William Lyon Macken­zie King. Rankin began read­ing King’s diary because of his fas­ci­na­tion with jour­nal­ing. He was into ecto­plasm and obsessed with his dog and his moth­er,” he explains. I knew those three things, and I thought, This is a guy I can relate to!’” The film explores King’s first cam­paign through a vari­ety of strange tri­als and tribu­la­tions, includ­ing an insa­tiable foot fetish, an over­bear­ing moth­er and the exis­ten­tial threat of Quebec’s dis­tinct culture.

Inspired by King’s diaries, Rankin want­ed to exam­ine the moment when utopi­an ideas from the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry shift­ed into the night­mar­ish sit­u­a­tion we find our­selves in now.” He was par­tic­u­lar­ly inspired by a speech giv­en by anoth­er prime min­is­ter, Sir Wil­fred Lau­ri­er, who bold­ly declared that, the 20th cen­tu­ry shall be the cen­tu­ry of Cana­da.” This strange and rather vague state­ment cap­tured Rankin’s imag­i­na­tion and helped dri­ve the film’s explo­ration of Cana­di­an iden­ti­ty. Yet Rankin, who him­self stud­ied his­to­ry, is under no false illu­sion that his film rep­re­sents a his­tor­i­cal truth. It’s pure­ly an artis­tic engage­ment with the past,” he says.

He returns to the idea of the Her­itage Min­utes, which he sug­gests are not cel­e­bra­tions of Cana­di­an accom­plish­ments as much as a way to under­mine the grow­ing artis­tic and social inde­pen­dence of Que­bec in the 1990s. They were devised as a weapon,“ he explains, sort of weapon­is­ing Anglo Cana­di­ans against Que­bec nation­als.” By posi­tion­ing Que­bec as a bea­con of moder­ni­ty and progress, Rankin’s film turns the tables on Eng­lish Cana­di­an audi­ences, who have come to see the province at its most exag­ger­at­ed worst in the past half-century.

I believe in the Luis Buñuel dic­tum about how in every film he made, he tried to insert a sin­gle grain of sand into the col­lec­tive eye­ball,” Rankin says. He felt that if he could irri­tate peo­ple, maybe he could trick them towards a new way of seeing.”

It’s not that The Twen­ti­eth Cen­tu­ry serves as an irri­tant, but it is often over­whelm­ing. Its visu­al style is unusu­al, its com­e­dy tar-black and its pol­i­tics chaot­ic. While it focus­es on spe­cif­ic char­ac­ters from Cana­di­an his­to­ry, the film nonethe­less has a broad appeal as a decon­struc­tion of nation­al­ist thought.

In one sequence, a series of can­di­dates pledge their alle­giance to the Great Dis­ap­point­ment (aka the Cana­di­an flag) and engage in a series of mediocre com­pe­ti­tions to test their pas­sive-aggres­sive­ness and thresh­olds for shame. Far from being a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Canada’s best vying for lead­er­ship, the sequence reveals a suc­ces­sion of piti­ful and des­per­ate­ly vain men who act as though becom­ing prime min­is­ter is their birthright. They wish to gov­ern the coun­try not to make it bet­ter but to facil­i­tate their own ambitions.

Rankin’s film also draws from a range of aes­thet­ic inspi­ra­tions, from ear­ly ani­ma­tion to Cana­di­an visu­al arts. There are sev­er­al ani­mat­ed sequences in the film whose sil­hou­ette tech­nique bor­rows from the works of Lotte Reiniger, best known for 1926’s The Adven­tures of Prince Achmed. Rankin was also influ­enced by Expo 67’s Pulp and Paper Pavil­ion, a group of sev­en painters, as well as Lau­ren Har­ris and York Wil­son due to their very metaphor­ic approach to the nat­ur­al world.”

From the Her­itage Min­utes to oth­er modes of Cana­di­an self-rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Rankin views the Cana­di­an nation­al iden­ti­ty as hyper-focused on self-plea­sur­ing. Cana­da is just self-grat­i­fy­ing itself to death,” he explains. And, in a way, so is the rest of the world. By focus­ing on mea­gre accom­plish­ments and pomp and cir­cum­stance, we’ve lost touch with dream­ing of a bet­ter future. While Rankin mocks some of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry con­vic­tion about a brighter future, the loss of that sun­ny ide­al­ism is also a deep blow to rad­i­cal and last­ing change.

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