My Winnipeg (2007, Canadian)

Equal parts travelogue, autobiography and myth, Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg may be his funniest film to date, and my favorite alongside Cowards Bend the Knee. Narrating a purported "escape" from his hometown of Winnipeg, Maddin navigates through a territory that is equal parts real and imaginary - personal and public histories intertwine with extravagant fantasies about sleepwalkers with keys to every home they've ever lived in, fantasy hockey teams made up of long-dead Manitoba athletes, glorious "Man Pageants," frozen horses and much more. Most memorable are the sections that ostensibly reenact moments of Maddin's family history, led by his fantastically overbearing mother (Ann Savage), who is, not surprisingly, as key a figure here as Winnipeg itself.

As usual, Maddin's visual style is stunning and inventive - a pastiche of silent film tropes, home movies, handheld black-and-white sequences, newsreels and montage. Not as uniform as some of his other films, it's a perfect mix for this "documentary", an excellent device for a film that focuses so much on what lies beneath the surface of things - particularly memories, but also those curious forks beneath the forks.