Cowards Bend the Knee (2003)

95% of critics liked it
(19 reviews)
87% of users liked it
(1,147 ratings)

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… More 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 a cross-dressing doctor performs abortions. As Veronica is on the operating table, Maddin spies Meta (Melissa Dionisio) and immediately falls in love with her, leaving Veronica behind. While Meta is attracted to Maddin, she will not grant him her favors until he passes a test -- he must track down the man who murdered her father and kill him using her late father's own blue hands. Shot on Super-8 film, Cowards Bend the Knee was originally created by Maddin as an art installation presented at a Toronto gallery and at the Rotterdam Film Festival, where viewers watched the film in six-minute segments through peepholes; it was later released in a conventional full-screen version. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr.
Directed By: Guy Maddin
Written By: Guy Maddin
Genres: Drama, Romance, Special Interest

In Theaters: Aug 11, 2004 Wide
On DVD: Sep 20, 2005
Studio: Zeitgeist

Critic Reviews

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
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.
John Anderson, Newsday
Lurid, tawdry and untoward entertainment from Canada's reigning mad genius.
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News
It's bliss, I tell you!
Manohla Dargis, New York Times
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.
J. Hoberman, Village Voice
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.
Sean Axmaker, Parallax View
... a miniature, barely more than an hour long... but it bubbles over with lust, guilt, and betrayal, not to mention weirdness.
Matthew Sorrento, Film Threat
Plays like a fever dream recalled upon waking, told with the immediacy of fear couched in relentless pleasure.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
A dreamlike tale told by an idiosyncratic storyteller who is hyper-imaginative.
Pam Grady, Reel.com
...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.
John Hartl, Seattle Times
If you've never seen Maddin's work, Cowards Bend the Knee is a good place to start.
Paula Nechak, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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.
Susan Green, Boxoffice Magazine
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.
David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor
There's a new visual idea every second, each teeming with energy, pitch-dark comedy, and inspired cinematic lunacy.
Kent Turner, Film-Forward.com
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.
Ken Fox, TV Guide's Movie Guide
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.

Read all 15 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Greg S

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… More
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, playing out like a mix of "Un Chien Andalou," "Mad Love," the Three Stooges, and "NHL on the Fly."
Ed Fucking H

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… More
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 sculptures and of course Hockey. This film is difficult to summarize so I won't bother. I can say that Guy Maddin is quickly becoming one of my favourite film makers from Canada or otherwise and everyone owes it to themselves to check out his unique films. Especially if your a fan of Silent Era films, Surrealism, German Expressionism or movies like Eraserhead, Tetsuo or Begotten. Strongly Recommended.

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Cowards Bend the Knee (2003)

Critic Reviews

Featured Audience Ratings

Greg S

Ed Fucking H

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