A postmodern family documentary : Stories We Tell

No doubt Sarah Polley has become a major film talent and Wellesian polymath - first as a comic actor (who didn't enjoy watching her Juliet in Slings and Arrows?), then as a fine director and screenwriter, in her smart adaptation of Alice Munro's story into Away from Her, now as a writer and documentary filmmaker in Stories We Tell - a magnificent and subtle examination of the dynamics of her own family, centering on her mother, who died when Polley was a young child - and on her father, Michael Polley (also an actor - played a comic good role beside Sarah P in Slings and Arrows - I had no idea then that he was her father). I won't give major elements away, but just will say these few notes: Michael Polley comes of as a complex and difficult but very kind and loving father of this complicated family, at times in the film - much of which he narrates, as he reads a hand-written family memoir he's been working on - we feel that he's a terribly sad and repressed man, unable to express and even hold feelings of grief, shame remorse - and we know nothing of his family background and childhood - but then we step back a little and realize how courageous he is to take on this project, and what a great father he was to Sarah during a very difficult time, and we see his generosity and open-mindedness - and I'm reminded of a line of his in Slings, in which he recalled some difficult passages in life, but then remarked that we look back on these "stories" and tell them and that's how you know: "you've led a life." I think that may have been Sarah Polley's inspiration (and title source perhaps). Second, S. Polley does a great job using family interviews documentary style, some archival footage (including I think some family super-8 movies), and lots of re-enactments that look like family videos or film - very convincing and beautifully filmed, directed, and edited. Third, she is something of a post-modern documentary filmmaker, as she allows us to look around the edges of the film - leaving the DP and other crew members in the frame from time to time, leaving her own questions in at times, asking her dad to "take back a line" while he's reading the script, which he does with great professional skill. Fourth, she gets so much out of her cautious and wary sibs, from the nervous titters as they begin this project till, eventually, each (I think) breaks down and then tries to brush the emotions aside. Very strong and totally captivating small-scale documentary film that has a lot to say about a unique family, and about how all of us make sense of our lives and our past through art.