Tales from the Gimli Hospital

Infobox Film
name = Tales from the Gimli Hospital


caption = Film poster
director = Guy Maddin
producer = Guy Maddin
Stephen Snyder
Greg Klymkiw
writers = Guy Maddin
starring = Kyle McCulloch
Michael Gottli
Angela Heck
Margaret Anne McLeod
Caroline Bonner
music = Laurence Mardon
cinematography = Guy Maddin
editing = Guy Maddin
released =
runtime = 72 min.
country = Canada
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id = 1:48511
imdb_id = 0096218

"Tales from the Gimli Hospital", directed by Guy Maddin, is a black-and-white 1988 psychodrama which incorporates elements of surrealism, black comedy, and expressionism.

Plot Synopsis

The film opens on two young children whose mother is dying in the present-day Gimli hospital. During a visit to see her, the children's Icelandic grandmother launches into the grim and convoluted tale of Einar the Lonely, a patient in a far-distant-past version of the same hospital—in "a Gimli we no longer know," as the grandmother puts it. The rest of the film consists of Einar's story. In it, Einar (Kyle McCulloch) succumbs to a smallpox epidemic and is admitted to the Gimli hospital for treatment, where he meets his neighbor Gunnar (Michael Gottli). While both are at first pleased to have a friend nearby in their time of illness, the two men soon begin competing for the attentions and affections of the hospital's beautiful young nurses by telling their own increasingly strange and convoluted stories—a competition at which the hapless Einar is at a major disadvantage, and it soon becomes clear that the Gimli nurses (in particular the angelic Snjofrieder, played by Caroline Bonner) favor the more charming Gunnar. However, it is only when the two men begin exchanging late-night confidences, and a terrible secret is revealed, that their friendship is irrevocably destroyed, and tragic consequences ensue.

Awards and nominations

Genie Awards:
*Nominated: Best Original Screenplay - Guy Maddin

External links

*