Film Review and Analysis the Story We Tell Ant3451

Families create their own narratives. Stories are passed on from generation to generation, and in this way the past continues to alive, but it can likewise be obscured or distorted. Joan Didion famously wrote, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Family arguments often come downwardly to who "owns" the narrative, or which version is decided upon every bit the "true" ane. Sarah Polley'due south fascinating documentary, "Stories Nosotros Tell," is ostensibly about her female parent, Diane Polley, who died in 1990. A powerful and thoughtful film, it is also non what it at commencement seems, which is function of the point Polley appears to be interested in making. Can the truth always really be known about annihilation?

In speaking about "Stories We Tell," it is important to avoid revealing the surprises subconscious within the flick, surprises of fact and surprises of Polley's structure, considering the discovery of said surprises is where the moving picture packs its greatest and almost enduring punch. The surprises do not operate equally cheap "Gotcha" moments, only instead draw back veils to show levels, shades, nuances. Diane Polley comes to us in fragments, and we are forced to re-adjust our interpretation of her throughout the film every bit new details are revealed. At 1 bespeak, one of Polley's interview subjects balks at the thought of having everyone tell the same story. Every bit far every bit he is concerned, only 2 people have the "right" to tell that story, and it is the 2 people involved. Otherwise, he says, "you lot can't e'er touch bottom." Inadvertently, in his criticism, he expresses Polley's whole theme.

Polley calls her interview subjects "The Storytellers," and they include her older sisters, Susy and Joanna, and her older brothers, John and Mark, and other important figures in her mother's past. Polley has said she was not interested in being an "omniscient" presence, and we tin hear Polley'southward questions and laughter from behind the photographic camera. Her father, Michael Polley, is an player equally well (familiar to anyone who was a fan of the Canadian TV serial Slings and Arrows, where, incidentally, Sarah Polley had a role in the third season). "Stories Nosotros Tell" begins with Sarah setting up her father in a recording berth, to do the narration for the film, which (we find out subsequently) he wrote. So in that location is already a distancing element in place. Information technology's a film nigh making a film, and, equally Polley tells her begetter, she sees the interviews as a kind of "interrogation procedure."

She asks each storyteller to "tell the story from the start until now," and every bit they begin, hesitantly at first, Polley supplements the story with old photographs and dwelling movies: beautiful footage of her mother, cavorting on the embankment, laughing at parties or around the pool, and, fascinatingly, singing "Own't Misbehavin'" in what looks like an old blackness-and-white audition tape. Diane Polley is described by one and all as a adult female who wanted to alive life to the fullest. One person says that her walk was so emphatic "she made the tape skip," an eloquent prototype. 1 family friend admits in an interview that she always sensed that Diane "had secrets," which turns out to exist truthful. She was an actress, but she gave that up to take her family unit. The wedlock to Michael was happy at kickoff, but discontent grew. Michael was a solitary type of guy, and Diane loved crowds and excitement.

The storytellers talk almost her life, her acting, her children and her marriage, and Polley doesn't privilege one version over some other. She is non interested in protecting her version (whatever it may exist), or protecting her mother. She is more interested in how her family unit members interact with their ain memories, and where they might intersect or diverge. Polley's touch here is gentle and yet insistent. At times, her siblings ask her, speaking to her behind the camera, "Well, what do yous remember nigh that time?"

Sarah Polley got her start young in Canadian television set, but she showed a rebellious streak early on, dropping out of acting birthday as a teenager to focus on politics. Her role in Cantlet Egoyan'south "The Sweet Future" (1997) was hailed by American critics, who treated her every bit a newcomer (although she had been working for years in Canada by that signal). Polley resisted the telephone call of stardom, doing what interested her, and making brusk films through the Canadian Pic Centre's prestigious director's plan. Her offset characteristic, "Away From Her," was a heartbreaking bout de strength, showing Polley's scenic confidence as a first-time director. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Julie Christie as Best Actress, and Polley for her adaptation of Alice Munro's short story). Polley's second characteristic was 2011's "Have This Waltz," starring Michelle Williams and Luke Kirby (Kirby, like Polley, was treated every bit a newcomer by American critics, but he had been riveting in the kickoff flavour of Slings and Arrows equally the American movie star playing "Hamlet" in Canada).

In both of these films, and at present in "Stories We Tell," Polley experiments with the expected narrative structures, pushing us to consider not just the meaning of stories but how the way nosotros tell the story tin can change its bear on. The interviews in "Stories Nosotros Tell" are amazingly intimate. This is a family talking to each other. Everyone however misses Diane. The loss they have suffered is incalculable. The questions Polley asks are not ever easy. The answers aren't simple either.

Diane Polley was, in some respects, a trapped woman. It'due south a mutual story with a common narrative thread, familiar to united states of america all: she wanted more out of life than just being a mother and a wife, but she was hemmed in by traditional responsibilities. Merely life is not that simple, and when you learn more about Diane, when you learn some of those "secrets," and one in detail, the cliched narrative thread falls apart. Diane Polley seemed to be an extroverted fun-loving person, and she was, and yet plainly the well was deep (so deep you "can't reach lesser"). Life is messy and Diane Polley's narrative is messy. Stories told again and over again have a way of neatening things upwardly. Stories have a fashion of ironing out the wrinkles. Polley lets the wrinkles remain. By the end of "Stories Nosotros Tell," I am left with the feeling that there's still so much I don't know about Diane Polley. And what a fitting eulogy that is.