The Icelandic Canadian - 01.11.2006, Qupperneq 20

106
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 60 #3
Thorson provides an analysis on what the
Icelandic Canadian identity has become
and what it should be.
Another Icelandic Canadian artist who
casts doubt on the modern manifestations
of the traditional Canadian Icelandic iden-
tity is filmmaker Guy Maddin. Maddin, a
second generation Canadian, shares more
with Thorson than simply ethnic heritage.
Guy’s life has also been associated with
great tragedy: his teenage brother Cameron
killed himself upon the grave of a recently
deceased girlfriend, and his father died sud-
denly some years later. Just as the Icelandic
immigrants moved beyond their overbear-
ing hardships through the development of
Icelandic-Canadian myths, so too did
Maddin: “Guy’s infatuation with movies
has also fueled a deeply autobiographical
compulsion to mythologize his own life,”
and for him, “filmmaking is a way of cop-
ing.” This transformation of his own life
into the cinematic medium is illustrated
through the climactic ending to his second
film Tales from the Gimli Hospital.
Drawing from a traumatic first love and
“all the jealousy that sprang from it,”
Maddin transmitted these experiences into
what he deemed “probably the most auto-
biographical moment of his own career.”
Yet while he shares the mythologizing
aspect with his Icelandic counterparts,
Maddin’s method of therapy exists in star-
tling contrast. To recognize this difference,
it is important to note once again that the
immigrants’ myths evolved from feelings
of isolation, both from their homeland and
their new land. As such, the self-image of
the Icelandic people seemed to evolve into
a feeling that in order to establish a place in
the New World, they had to place them-
selves above tragedy - as though their his-
toric Viking courage and present-day suc-
cesses would provide an immunity to any
hardships they were dealt. Maddin’s per-
sonal myths do exactly the opposite; they
in fact seek to ease the pain of an ordeal
through the illumination that such trials are
experienced by all:
“Offscreen: ... do you think your
films will ever help provide solace for the
biggest traumas in your life? Maddin: ... it
sounds so self-centred, but it’s enabled me
to continually think of people and myself,
and how I’m just regular like everyone
else.”
Therefore, it is through his own type
of mythmaking, which equates his
tragedies with those of others, that Maddin
finds the ability to move beyond these
struggles.
Maddin also suggests in Tales from the
Gimli Hospital, much as Charles Thorson
did, that the traditional Icelandic-Canadian
identity has become an inaccessible rem-
nant of past generations. This is empha-
sized through the opening of the film in
which “there have been clouds, maybe
angels and the sound of what may be a
motorcycle engine - completely incongru-
ous, repeated over and over, modern urban
din in a time warp and the presence of
Icelanders in traditional dress. It is the jux-
taposition of these two extremes, moderni-
ty and historical tradition, that Maddin
seems to suggest that the stagnant
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