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Cowards Bend the Knee (2003)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 8/10
Reviews Counted: 19
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 1

No consensus yet.

100

Average Rating: 8.4/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 0

No consensus yet.

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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 1,133

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Movie Info

The wildly idiosyncratic Canadian auteur Guy Maddin created this exercise in semi-autobiographical impressionism. Guy Maddin (Darcy Fehr) is a gifted but weak-willed hockey player who has helped drive the Winnipeg Maroons to a championship season. However, Maddin's sense of triumph is dashed when his girlfriend Veronica (Amy Stewart) informs him that she's pregnant. Incapable of dealing with parenthood, Maddin escorts Veronica to The Black Silhouette, a combination beauty shop and brothel where

Unrated, 1 hr.

Drama, Romance, Special Interest

Directed By: Guy Maddin

Written By: Guy Maddin

In Theaters: Aug 11, 2004 Wide

On DVD: Sep 20, 2005

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Cast

Critic Reviews for Cowards Bend the Knee

All Critics (23) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (20) | Rotten (1) | DVD (6)

There's no denying the imagination and technical ingenuity on display, but this clearly ranks as one of Maddin's less accessible efforts, which is definitely saying something.

August 18, 2004 Comment

Frank Scheck

Hollywood Reporter

Top Critic

Lurid, tawdry and untoward entertainment from Canada's reigning mad genius.

August 13, 2004 Full Review Source: Newsday

| Comment

John Anderson

Newsday

Top Critic

It's bliss, I tell you!

August 11, 2004 Full Review Source: New York Daily News

| Comment

Jami Bernard

New York Daily News

Top Critic

There is also something rather splendid about this extended-play peep show, as if Mr. Maddin had stumbled across a hitherto lost archive of cinema's less-than-innocent past.

August 11, 2004 Full Review Source: New York Times

| Comment

Manohla Dargis

New York Times

Top Critic

What's truly extraordinary about this movie -- which strikes me on two viewings as Maddin's masterpiece -- is that it not only plays like a dream but feels like one.

August 10, 2004 Full Review Source: Village Voice

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J. Hoberman

Village Voice

Top Critic

... a miniature, barely more than an hour long... but it bubbles over with lust, guilt, and betrayal, not to mention weirdness.

December 21, 2010 Full Review Source: Parallax View

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Sean Axmaker

Parallax View

Plays like a fever dream recalled upon waking, told with the immediacy of fear couched in relentless pleasure.

October 13, 2008 Full Review Source: Film Threat

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Matthew Sorrento

Film Threat

A dreamlike tale told by an idiosyncratic storyteller who is hyper-imaginative.

February 6, 2006 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews

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Dennis Schwartz

Ozus' World Movie Reviews

...an autobiographical silent noir of hockey, hairdressing, and murder that was originally commissioned by Toronto's Power Plant art gallery. Cowards is a serial peep show.

September 21, 2005 Comment

Pam Grady

Reel.com

If you've never seen Maddin's work, Cowards Bend the Knee is a good place to start.

January 28, 2005 Full Review Source: Seattle Times

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John Hartl

Seattle Times

If you're a fan of Maddin's expressionist style, you'll find the humor within. Everyone else will be scratching their heads, despite Maddin's extraordinary visual imagination.

January 27, 2005 Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Paula Nechak

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Although only an hour long, the movie -- which uses intertitles to convey dialogue -- may seem endless to those who have not acquired a taste for Maddin's surreal mayhem.

August 13, 2004 Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine

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Susan Green

Boxoffice Magazine

There's a new visual idea every second, each teeming with energy, pitch-dark comedy, and inspired cinematic lunacy.

August 12, 2004 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor

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David Sterritt

Christian Science Monitor

The pleasure is watching how the fast-paced story careens from one outrageous plot turn to the next. This is one film in which over-the-top is sincere praise.

August 11, 2004 Full Review Source: Film-Forward.com

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Kent Turner

Film-Forward.com

Most of Maddin's usual preoccupations are in evidence -- guilt, incest, sexual obsession, voyeurism, early cinema and Maddin's greatest love, hockey -- and as luridly entertaining as ever.

August 11, 2004 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide

| Comment

Ken Fox

TV Guide's Movie Guide

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Audience Reviews for Cowards Bend the Knee

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The impossible to summarize, dreamlike plot features a hockey player with a wandering eye, abortions, seductive ghosts, hand transplants, matricide, an ice breast, slapstick routines, and wax galoots. Shot as a silent film with disorienting, stuttering editing, "Cowards" is shocking, stylish and often hilarious,

October 23, 2009

Greg S

Super Reviewer

This is kinda what Un Chien Andalou would be like if Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel were Canadians raised on Hockey and Canadian Whiskey. A surreal, semi-auto-biographical (in ways only Guy Maddin knows I'm sure), silent film featuring abortions, amputations, strangulations (including a cop (!)), fisting, boobies, wax

December 12, 2010