Cowards Bend the Knee

Adapted from a ten-part peephole installation, Cowards Bend the Knee is jam-packed with enough kinetically photographed action to seem like a never-ending cliffhanger. In this twisted and poisoned wish fulfillment, the mythomaniacal Maddin casts "himself" (actually, Darcy Fehr) as a hockey sniper made lily-livered by mother and daughter femme fatales, and resurrects his father as the team's radio broadcaster and his own romantic antagonist. Set in a shadow-suffused hockey arena and a Mabuse-like beauty salon/abortion clinic, the plot drips with Grecian formula, as sordid family secrets spawn unintentional murder most foul.