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Canada · 1992
1h 40m
Director Guy Maddin
Starring Kyle McCulloch, Gosia Dobrowolska, Sarah Neville, Brent Neale
Genre Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror
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In the village of Tolzbad in the 19th century, people restrain their movements to avoid creating avalanches. This atmosphere lends itself to repressed emotions and sexual desire, which, in this town, can lead to death. All this is shot in an early German sound film style, complete with intertitles, crackly soundtrack, and 'hand-tinted' color effects.
While the deliberately amateurish, stilted acting seems at odds with the fruity dialogue, Maddin's intention is to subdue every aspect of his peculiar dreamscape; acting, decor, costuming, cinematography and sound recording remain equal components. No one element predominates or upsets the director's carefully controlled chaos.
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
Maddin keeps what could have been a one-joke theme interesting for an admirably long time. But eventually, it becomes, well, hard to breathe. There's something wonderfully unique about the project but the reasons for doing it remain buried.
Careful, the hilariously bizarre new film from Canadian director Guy Maddin, is like some lost masterpiece from a time-warped alternative dimension -- a strange artifact that time forgot.
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
If you like the early work of David Lynch you should definitely check this out; Maddin's films are every bit as beautiful and in certain respects a lot more sophisticated.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
At 100 minutes Careful begins to bore, whereas at half that running time it might well have been unalloyed fun. [05 Nov 1993, p.F12]
Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov
Too strange for its own good, Careful is less interesting as a film than it is as a Canadian cinematic anomaly.
Uniquely weird, subtly macabre, and utterly compelling.
Although longer and more complex than Gimli, thanks to a fine script by Maddin and George Toles, Careful is equally claustrophobic. The director's continued use of minimal lighting, deliberately phony-looking studio sets, and sterile overdubs perpetuates a feeling of blatant manufacture which undercuts any disturbing themes.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen
Canadian director Guy Maddin is an artist supreme - he steals with a liberal flourish and with enough sheer imagination that his previous films (Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Archangel) are often described as boldly original. Careful, his latest offering, is no exception - it's an honours graduate from the same school of dusted-off originality. [10 Oct 1992]
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
If the central performances in Careful approached the earnest intensity of some of its early-1930's inspirations, the movie would probably be twice as funny.
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