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Canada · 1990
Rated PG-13 · 1h 22m
Director Guy Maddin
Starring Michael Gottli, David Falkenburg, Michael O'Sullivan, Margaret Anne MacLeod
Genre Comedy, Drama, Romance, War
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Lt. John Boles is trapped in the icy Russian town of Archangel. When Boles meets a local couple named Veronkha and Philbin, he falls for Veronkha. What follows is a twisted love triangle, as Philbin, an amnesiac, forgets that he is married to Veronkha, while Boles begins to think that Veronkha is his dead wife.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by
Wonderfully theatrical in conceit and frequently beautiful to look at, Archangel is nevertheless choppy and listless in pace, and has little of the surrealist zing of the earlier film (Tales from the Gimli Hospital). [03 Sep 1990]
Archangel is a perfectly self-contained aesthetic object, maddening in its arbitrariness and opacity, yet wholly absorbing in its flurry of urgent yet incomprehensible significations.
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
What comes across is a fascinating fetishist delirium, where memories of remote war movies get recycled into something that's alternately creepy and beautiful.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
So much for the plot; what's important is Maddin's witty, knowing evocation of vintage movie kitsch. [11 Dec 1991, p.F11]
Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov
At once perplexing and joyous, Maddin has crafted a film that, for all the confusion inherent in the tale, unfolds on its own unique (and rather tedious) terms. Love it or hate it, this is one film that just doesn't give a damn what you think.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
From its flickering, inky cinematography to its wavering late 1920's-style sound track, to Veronkha's kohl-eyed vampish look, the movie is an expert parody of a period movie style.
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