an installation by Jakub Szczęsny for the movie by Guy Maddin Cowards Bend the Knee or The Blue Hands
Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee or The Blue Hands (2003) is a film to peek. On your own, in hiding, through a keyhole or one-way mirror. In Derailed Cinema, the director confirms he made an autobiographical movie that provokes the viewer to take the position of a voyeur, who will get everything he needs in it: “a little pornography, some shameful stories, evidence of my own cowardice, etc. […] The word cowards in the title encouraged me.”
Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee or The Blue Hands (2003) is a film to peek. On your own, in hiding, through a keyhole or one-way mirror. In Derailed Cinema, the director confirms he made an autobiographical movie that provokes the viewer to take the position of a voyeur, who will get everything he needs in it: “a little pornography, some shameful stories, evidence of my own cowardice, etc. […] The word cowards in the title encouraged me.”
In Cowards…, Maddin goes to the other side of the mirror – and quite literally on occasion. The beauty salon (mother!) and the hockey arena (father!), two places where he grew up, become – respectively – a brothel/abortion clinic and a grim crime scene. It is impossible to tell the biography from its alternative version. “Some of the events actually took place, while others are their exact opposites. A bit like cubism – at the same time things are seen from the front, side and back.”
