A weird and wild tale of obsessive love, Guy Maddin's second feature is set in the northernmost tip of imperial Russia in the winter of 1919. The Great War has been over for three months, but no one has remembered to tell the combatants in the town of Archangel. One of those is a 'Dominion of Canada' solider, Lt. John Boles, heartsick over the death of his beloved Iris who signed up to join the conflict in Russia. Arriving in the remote town of Archangel, he's soon besotted with Veronkha, a woman who so resembles Boles' departed Iris that he convinces himself she is in fact his lost love. All this melodrama unfolding in an already confused, amnesia-addled war zone makes for an unforgettable (pardon the pun) Maddin cinematic experience. "Shot in sumptuous black and white worthy of Josef von Sternberg and filled with slices of the surreal and the cruel, Winnipeg visionary director Guy Maddin's second feature is a masterpiece: a whimsical, luminous conflation of absurdity, high romance, heroic delusion, and the Canadian colonial. Buster Keaton would approve; Luis Buñuel, too."

- Tom McSorley

This 4K restoration from the original 16mm camera negative was completed in 2023 by Toronto-based production company Sphinx Productions in association with Films We Like. Funding for the restoration was provided by Telefilm Canada through the Canadian Cinema - Digitization Reignited program.