Home Cooked Music
2014 · 9m · Canada
Directed by Mike Maryniuk
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
Retired machinist Lorne Collie builds working guitars, violins and banjos from shovels, rakes, bats and stop signs after a near-death experience.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects the magical-retiree-finds-purpose story, but Maryniuk refuses the sentimental trap—he just lets Lorne work, lets the shovels sing, and trusts the weirdness of turning metal trash into instruments to do its own heavy lifting without explanation.
A formally restrained documentary that places itself squarely in the artisan-portrait tradition—observe how Maryniuk frames each instrument-building sequence with the patience of a classical craftsman himself, honoring both subject and form.
The entire film pivots on one sound design choice: letting the raw metallic scrape of tool-on-metal stay present in the mix rather than smoothing it away, which transforms what could be quaint into something genuinely unsettling and alive.