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# A Funhouse Mirror Telling of Canadian History
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/the-twentieth-century-canada-prime-minister-film/
- Published: 2020-12-10T16:20:48.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:42:32.000Z
- Description: The Twentieth Century is a surreal, irreverent anti-biopic of Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.
- Author: Dan Schindel
- Tags: Film, Canada, Capsule Reviews, History, Review, Satire, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 09:08 (2019, 2020, part 3)

[William Lyon Mackenzie King](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William%5FLyon%5FMackenzie%5FKing?ref=hyperallergic.com) is notable for having four incredibly posh names in a row, and also being the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Canada. His legacy lives on in a long string of respectful tributes … which decidedly does not include the new film *The Twentieth Century*. Written and directed by Matthew Rankin, this is history as projected through several warping lenses, a parody of the myth of Canada instead of a traditional biopic. It takes Mackenzie King's life story and swirls it in with German Expressionism, Guy Maddin, [*Heritage Minutes*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage%5FMinutes?ref=hyperallergic.com), and a complete absence of reverence.

This version of Mackenzie King is plagued by a lust for women's footwear and dominated by his bedridden mother, who has preordained that he *must* become prime minister at any cost. Attaining that seat rides not on an election, but a series of absurd competitions amongst hopefuls (cutting ribbons, identifying trees by their smell, demonstrating proper etiquette when someone cuts in front of them in a line). Governor General Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound (good grief, *there's* a posh name) is imagined as the tyrannical Big-Brother-like "Lord Muto." With an endlessly absurd plot and consistently brilliant production design, this is the anti-biopic to beat for the winter season.

[The Twentieth Century](https://thetwentiethcentury.oscilloscope.net/?ref=hyperallergic.com) *is now playing in virtual cinemas.*