A film blog for students of my classes at Santa Clara University. Use this blog to discuss the films we are studying, classic films, current releases or production issues you encounter while making your own films.
Tuesday, November 03, 2015
Stories We Tell - documentary class post
What is the film's narrative/story? What do you feel about how the director presented this story? Do you feel mislead? Do you have any ethical concerns with her storytelling style?
13 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I feel that the screenplay had more detail and some irony shown especially when cool breeze enters the market store and steals from them but when she came to pay for the epsom salts the cashier told her that the black man that left you can never take your eyes off their kind because they'll rob you, not knowing that she just stole from him. I also noticed that the screenplay is also more detailed and gives you more insight on things we can not physically see and makes it feel like you can actually visualize it. The screenplay also share the same plot and with the characters they seem to be the same as they are showing the movie.
This documentary is about what people remembered about Diane Polly, an actress and energetic lover of life. The film culminates in Sarah Polly's quest to discover who her biological father is. Sarah, who is also the film's director and writer, uses the stories told by her siblings and her mother Diane's friends to try and discover the truth. The truth, of course, is masked by bias and faulty memory. However, what matters to Sarah is how people construct their memories into stories.
This is one of the most powerful documentaries I have seen. While it would have been more factual to have gone by nothing more than the DNA test, the film is so much more interesting when the stories of the relatives are involved. Learning about the human process of remembering and translating what they heard and saw from a third person perspective brings unique angles to the story.
I do not feel mislead. I would certainly have felt misled if the doc did not make clear that the evidence was a bunch of stories. However, I love how it broke the fourth wall and openly discussed the implications of what was on screen.
Ethically speaking, if the doc set out to discover the facts it would be unethical to use hear say as evidence. But it did not, the doc used people's stories about the truth to make a claim about human psychology.
This documentary is about how we tell stories and what information we remember from a story someone tells us. The main focus of the film is the complicated storyline of the Polley family. Diane Polley was a very spirited and energetic mother that raised her children with her husband Michael. Their marriage was not the happiest and so Diane went to Montreal, where she met Harry, who we later find out is the biological father of her youngest daughter Sarah. Sarah is the director of the film and the movie captures her journey of finding out who her biological father is.
The manner in which Sarah tells the story is very interesting and unique. She interviews all members of her family in order to see how their stories differ and how their different positions or roles in the family alter what they have heard and what they remember. Harry has an interesting quote saying the story was truly only his and Diane's to tell because they were the only individuals directly involved in it.
Personally, I don't think the documentary was unethical or misleading because it was showing the story of this complicated family and was making a larger commentary on how we remember only certain facts and recount our stories to other individuals. In my opinion, if she had not included her biological father in the film then I would say it was unethical because it would be based on gossip. However, she uses letter readings and interviews strategically to tell her story in a very powerful manner. She is not misrepresenting the story of her family by using a more controlled, "fictional" way of storytelling.
In this documentary, Stories We Tell, Sarah is telling the story of her complicated family tree and about her energetic actress of a mother Diane Polley. Overall I really enjoyed this film, by the way she asked her friends and family members to tell their side of the story in the version they remember it by, but this way of filming does not mislead me from the point of the story. Its all a big puzzle that you are trying to figure out at the film goes on and it is fun and interesting piecing it together as the different stories unfold. At first, part of me thought having her father narrate the story was a big weird, but as the film progressed, I found myself more accustomed to it and I thought the narration was a great way to tie the whole story together. I think the way she put to together the interview was humorous at times which added another great element to the story since you started to understand her siblings a little more and how they approached their crazy family storyline. I don't believe the documentary crossed any lines ethically since it was all based of personal experienced and cold hard facts (such as the DNA test). I think this movie was very well made and the way it was filmed and edited made really enjoyable to watch.
The documentary, Stories We Tell, follows the writer and director, Sarah Polley, as she tries to learn her families biggest secret by interviewing her siblings, father, and family friends. Throughout the interviews of the film we see the love and connection between Sarah and her subjects, as well as her mother through every story about her, but each story she hears is different than the next. She leaves us having to pick and choose pieces of each story throughout the film to put them all together to make the big answer she has been searching and wondering for, which is, who is Sarah's biological father? It's obvious to see how this was something that the family did not talk about and looked the other way, and we see the stress it caused Sarah over the course of the film and her life.
I like how she interviewed everyone, being that the interviews tended to be playful at times as well as serious it kept for me as a viewer interested. The coolest part of this story was the way her father, Michael's, narrative ended the film telling us how the process of this documentary with all of the questioning brought him and his daughter closer together than they had ever been. So, no, I do not feel I was mislead by the way she conducted her interviews. I also did not feel her story telling was unethical as she created a playful way to show how everyone's story the truth was different.
The film's narrative/story in "Stories We Tell" is constructed through interviews, old photos, and home movies. It tells the life of the filmmaker's mother, Diane Polley, through the eyes of her loved ones. The theme of this story emphasizes that it isn't just about what the meaning of a story is. More so, it's about the way we tell it. This film exemplifies how much of an effect the way we tell a story has an effect on those who listen to it. Each family member had his or her own perspective on what had happened, which demonstrates how differently we perceive and understand certain situations. It also shows how different roles play into this factor, such as being a daughter or a husband to someone.
I enjoyed how the director portrayed this story. I think she did an amazing job by using family members to tell the story of her mother, which made it much more emotional. You can see how much they admired and loved Diane. The story allowed me to learn about Diane, but also wanting to know more about her. It's intriguing. The B-Roll helps paint a picture of her life because it supports what is being said in the interviews, which allows me to understand Diane on a deeper level.
I do not feel mislead or have any ethical concerns with this film. I think this is a good lesson to learn and an eye-opener to people. It's a good way to show that even if we don't have bad intentions, we can still be mislead and can spread the wrong information to people that will in turn have an effect on how the listener perceives the person the story is being told about. This was probably my favorite documentary out of the bunch, and I personally love the message behind it. I was also extremely intrigued by the type of woman Diane was and the struggles she faced in life. I admire how much she gave up for her family and how she expressed her love for her life.
Stories We Tell is a 2012 documentary written and directed by Sarah Polley that tells the story of her late mother and the secrets that she kept hidden away. Polley slowly unveils this as the film goes on, and she does so through interviews with her siblings, father, friends of her mother, and others. She pairs these interviews with behind the scenes shots of the interviewees getting ready and comfortable beforehand, Polley giving advice to her father as he reads the script for narration, found footage of her parents, as well as recreations or reenactments of her mother in everyday life. We start out learning about her mother's outgoing and eccentric personality, and then slowly find out that her mother had an affair while performing in Montreal. Not just that, but that Polley is actually a product of that extramarital affair.
I actually really loved this film and how Polley chose to tell it. The fact that we were able to go behind the scenes gave it a more personal and intimate feel, as we got to know the family members beyond the interview questions. We heard Polley laughing and joking with her siblings, like when she called her brother "an a-hole" in jest. I can see why people might have felt misled, as in when they showed that some of the found footage shots were actually reenactments. I admit I was shocked at first, but then I really appreciated how skillfully Polley pulled off the recreations to make them so real and believable. I think it added a lot to the film and I wasn't angry. I also don't have ethical concerns with Polley's storytelling style, because I think she merely revealed her family and mother's story rather than exploited it.
This film was about the life of the producer’s mother Diane Polley, but more importantly how we tell stories and what we remember from the stories we are told. Sarah Polley does this by using interviews with her family members and friends of her mother’s. I think that the way Sarah created this film was very interesting and I am not sure that I enjoyed watching it. I think that the way she used interviews and old clips of film from her past life was awesome and helped move the story along. I felt like it was very slow and all the secrets took forever to get out. I think that this is probably what she wanted in the film. I do not think that there were any ethical concerns with her storytelling style. I think that it was very unique, but at the same time it was very natural. We followed Sarah through the process of her finding information about her mother by seeing how she did the interviews and listened to the story as her father narrated it.
What is the film's narrative/story? What do you feel about how the director presented this story? Do you feel mislead? Do you have any ethical concerns with her storytelling style?
The film tells the story of her mother's love life and affair that led to her birth, but it was all kept secret and only uncovered after her death. It is complicated though, as in it doesn't truly tell her mother's story, but rather it tells the story of how her mother and her mother's choices affected so many people. I thought the presentation of this story was especially clever and created, as it chose to focus on this nuance instead of the actual story of her mother. It nit picked people's personal perceptions of her and then brought them to life through recreation because to them, these are their reality of their mother. While the stories differed, I thought this recreation was extremely clever as it thus made each persons story a reality rather than just showing real footage that didnt necessarily fit with the stories being told. I truly was mislead throughout most of the documentary, as I thought the footage was real for much of it, but after taking a step back and examining why she chose to do so, it makes the actual message much more powerful, as it proves how memories and stories really are our reality even if they aren't reality.
The documentary "Stories We Tell" follows the life of Diane Polley, who died of cancer years ago. This story is told by her loved ones who knew her best. It is an interesting documentary because it is made by Diane's youngest daughter, Sarah. Sarah's mission in this documentary is to follow her mother's life to inevitably find out who her real father is, which she does. In the process, we see multiple individuals all tell parts of the same story: the life of Diane. This documentary captures very raw emotion through a unique technique on perspectives. I really liked how the director and doc team presented the story in this manner, because we got to see how subjective our perceptions can be. Even though one thing occurs, two people can perceive this occurrence very differently. I also enjoyed this documentary because the narrative of Diane's life was so inciting; it grabbed my attention immediately; along with Sarah's quest to discover who her real father is. I do not feel mislead in this doc, but I can see how some people might feel this way. It seems that a lot of the b-roll footage used to portray Diane's life was in fact a reenactment; however I was wondering that this was the case the entire time because it would've been incredible if some of this great footage actually existed in the quality that it did. However, I don't feel mislead because the "b-roll" still did an excellent job at portraying the narrative of the film. Plus I'm sure Sarah had a lot to do with the reenactments, and she probably wanted to make sure that they were as accurate as possible to do justice to her late mother. The only ethical concerns I could see in this story were that it got very personal at times, which could make some people uncomfortable. However, I didn't have a problem with this as it also added to the narrative and emotional pull of the film. All in all, it was a fantastic film that I will highly suggest to some of my peers.
The documentary, Stories We Tell, is a film made by Sarah Polley and it follows her recounting the story of finding out the truth about who her biological father is as well as the family's background. The film is told through family members and close friends so we get various versions, angles, and interpretations of the same events that happened in the past. The film began by telling the story of Sarah's mother, Diane, and then the film transitioned into becoming more about Sarah and her situation. I liked how the film focused on the family's background because it was able to show how it affected Sarah and her siblings. The way Sarah decided to tell the story was unique and I liked it because she understands that everyone has their own version of a story and it was nice to get such a broad picture of events. She used various interviews, pictures, and old home footage to also tell the story. Since this is essentially also a film about the filmmaker herself, it would have been nice to see her get interviewed because it seemed she was almost hiding behind the camera at times. Yes, she wanted to tell the story through other people's accounts and she had no problem breaking the fourth wall and introducing herself in the film but I feel like she could have gone deeper into film instead of just reading letters or narration. I'm still unsure about the use of the old super-8 footage because it seems like she's trying to manipulate a feeling of old memories. I can see why she choose to use it but it feels recreated at times. In the end, however, I appreciate her experimental way of telling the story and it kept me engaged the whole time.
Stories We Tell is a documentary about young filmmaker Sarah Polley's journey to finding the truth about her family history, specifically her biological father. The story highlights the life of Sarah's deceased mother, Diane. The film reveals Sarah's discoveries in an incredibly creative and unique way. The way that the interview footage, B-roll, and the (recreated) super-8 footage were layered together made the audience captivated in the story and it made the narrative much more powerful. Though I do not have ethical concerns about the way that the film was put together, I can see why some people might feel mislead with the reenactments. The story lines and creative narratives of the films we watch get more complex every week, and this was one of my favorites thus far.
In the documentary "Stories We Tell," there are multiple simultaneous stories being told. There are three levels of the narrative that I see at work in the documentary. At the base level, film director Sarah Polley is telling the complicated life story of her deceased mother, Diane Polley through the stories of family members and close friends. The next level of the narrative is Sarah Polley's very personal journey to discover the truth of who her biological father is and how that truth changes her view of her family and the world. The final level of narrative is exploring the nature of human storytelling by listening side-by-side to the stories of the family members, lovers, coworkers, and friends of Diane Polley, who each have a completely different perspective on the story but together paint a vivid image of the director's mother. I feel that director Sarah Polley presented this story in a very honest and truthful manner, which I really respected and enjoyed. By presenting the documentary in a self-reflexive manner, the director's motives for making the film are not hidden- in fact they are front and center to the story. The self-reflexivity makes the viewer trust the filmmakers and trust that what is being said is honest. Like others have mentioned, the only time I felt mislead was during the reenactments filmed on Super 8 footage. It gave the illusion that this footage was taken from family archives, when in fact it was directed with actors and fiction filmmaking techniques. Some of the footage may in fact have been family archives, but because of the filming style, it was impossible to tell what was real and what was created by the filmmakers. But again, even the Super 8 reenactments were self reflexive, because we see Sarah Polley filming the scenes at the end of the film- so nothing is hidden from the viewer. I do not have ethical concerns with the way that this film was told. Perhaps at times the director was brutal and pushed her subjects far, but that is what makes the film great and brings out the most honest human emotion and feeling from the story that viewers can truely connect with.
13 comments:
I feel that the screenplay had more detail and some irony shown especially when cool breeze enters the market store and steals from them but when she came to pay for the epsom salts the cashier told her that the black man that left you can never take your eyes off their kind because they'll rob you, not knowing that she just stole from him.
I also noticed that the screenplay is also more detailed and gives you more insight on things we can not physically see and makes it feel like you can actually visualize it. The screenplay also share the same plot and with the characters they seem to be the same as they are showing the movie.
This documentary is about what people remembered about Diane Polly, an actress and energetic lover of life. The film culminates in Sarah Polly's quest to discover who her biological father is. Sarah, who is also the film's director and writer, uses the stories told by her siblings and her mother Diane's friends to try and discover the truth. The truth, of course, is masked by bias and faulty memory. However, what matters to Sarah is how people construct their memories into stories.
This is one of the most powerful documentaries I have seen. While it would have been more factual to have gone by nothing more than the DNA test, the film is so much more interesting when the stories of the relatives are involved. Learning about the human process of remembering and translating what they heard and saw from a third person perspective brings unique angles to the story.
I do not feel mislead. I would certainly have felt misled if the doc did not make clear that the evidence was a bunch of stories. However, I love how it broke the fourth wall and openly discussed the implications of what was on screen.
Ethically speaking, if the doc set out to discover the facts it would be unethical to use hear say as evidence. But it did not, the doc used people's stories about the truth to make a claim about human psychology.
This documentary is about how we tell stories and what information we remember from a story someone tells us. The main focus of the film is the complicated storyline of the Polley family. Diane Polley was a very spirited and energetic mother that raised her children with her husband Michael. Their marriage was not the happiest and so Diane went to Montreal, where she met Harry, who we later find out is the biological father of her youngest daughter Sarah. Sarah is the director of the film and the movie captures her journey of finding out who her biological father is.
The manner in which Sarah tells the story is very interesting and unique. She interviews all members of her family in order to see how their stories differ and how their different positions or roles in the family alter what they have heard and what they remember. Harry has an interesting quote saying the story was truly only his and Diane's to tell because they were the only individuals directly involved in it.
Personally, I don't think the documentary was unethical or misleading because it was showing the story of this complicated family and was making a larger commentary on how we remember only certain facts and recount our stories to other individuals. In my opinion, if she had not included her biological father in the film then I would say it was unethical because it would be based on gossip. However, she uses letter readings and interviews strategically to tell her story in a very powerful manner. She is not misrepresenting the story of her family by using a more controlled, "fictional" way of storytelling.
In this documentary, Stories We Tell, Sarah is telling the story of her complicated family tree and about her energetic actress of a mother Diane Polley. Overall I really enjoyed this film, by the way she asked her friends and family members to tell their side of the story in the version they remember it by, but this way of filming does not mislead me from the point of the story. Its all a big puzzle that you are trying to figure out at the film goes on and it is fun and interesting piecing it together as the different stories unfold. At first, part of me thought having her father narrate the story was a big weird, but as the film progressed, I found myself more accustomed to it and I thought the narration was a great way to tie the whole story together. I think the way she put to together the interview was humorous at times which added another great element to the story since you started to understand her siblings a little more and how they approached their crazy family storyline. I don't believe the documentary crossed any lines ethically since it was all based of personal experienced and cold hard facts (such as the DNA test). I think this movie was very well made and the way it was filmed and edited made really enjoyable to watch.
The documentary, Stories We Tell, follows the writer and director, Sarah Polley, as she tries to learn her families biggest secret by interviewing her siblings, father, and family friends. Throughout the interviews of the film we see the love and connection between Sarah and her subjects, as well as her mother through every story about her, but each story she hears is different than the next. She leaves us having to pick and choose pieces of each story throughout the film to put them all together to make the big answer she has been searching and wondering for, which is, who is Sarah's biological father? It's obvious to see how this was something that the family did not talk about and looked the other way, and we see the stress it caused Sarah over the course of the film and her life.
I like how she interviewed everyone, being that the interviews tended to be playful at times as well as serious it kept for me as a viewer interested. The coolest part of this story was the way her father, Michael's, narrative ended the film telling us how the process of this documentary with all of the questioning brought him and his daughter closer together than they had ever been. So, no, I do not feel I was mislead by the way she conducted her interviews. I also did not feel her story telling was unethical as she created a playful way to show how everyone's story the truth was different.
The film's narrative/story in "Stories We Tell" is constructed through interviews, old photos, and home movies. It tells the life of the filmmaker's mother, Diane Polley, through the eyes of her loved ones. The theme of this story emphasizes that it isn't just about what the meaning of a story is. More so, it's about the way we tell it. This film exemplifies how much of an effect the way we tell a story has an effect on those who listen to it. Each family member had his or her own perspective on what had happened, which demonstrates how differently we perceive and understand certain situations. It also shows how different roles play into this factor, such as being a daughter or a husband to someone.
I enjoyed how the director portrayed this story. I think she did an amazing job by using family members to tell the story of her mother, which made it much more emotional. You can see how much they admired and loved Diane. The story allowed me to learn about Diane, but also wanting to know more about her. It's intriguing. The B-Roll helps paint a picture of her life because it supports what is being said in the interviews, which allows me to understand Diane on a deeper level.
I do not feel mislead or have any ethical concerns with this film. I think this is a good lesson to learn and an eye-opener to people. It's a good way to show that even if we don't have bad intentions, we can still be mislead and can spread the wrong information to people that will in turn have an effect on how the listener perceives the person the story is being told about. This was probably my favorite documentary out of the bunch, and I personally love the message behind it. I was also extremely intrigued by the type of woman Diane was and the struggles she faced in life. I admire how much she gave up for her family and how she expressed her love for her life.
Stories We Tell is a 2012 documentary written and directed by Sarah Polley that tells the story of her late mother and the secrets that she kept hidden away. Polley slowly unveils this as the film goes on, and she does so through interviews with her siblings, father, friends of her mother, and others. She pairs these interviews with behind the scenes shots of the interviewees getting ready and comfortable beforehand, Polley giving advice to her father as he reads the script for narration, found footage of her parents, as well as recreations or reenactments of her mother in everyday life. We start out learning about her mother's outgoing and eccentric personality, and then slowly find out that her mother had an affair while performing in Montreal. Not just that, but that Polley is actually a product of that extramarital affair.
I actually really loved this film and how Polley chose to tell it. The fact that we were able to go behind the scenes gave it a more personal and intimate feel, as we got to know the family members beyond the interview questions. We heard Polley laughing and joking with her siblings, like when she called her brother "an a-hole" in jest. I can see why people might have felt misled, as in when they showed that some of the found footage shots were actually reenactments. I admit I was shocked at first, but then I really appreciated how skillfully Polley pulled off the recreations to make them so real and believable. I think it added a lot to the film and I wasn't angry. I also don't have ethical concerns with Polley's storytelling style, because I think she merely revealed her family and mother's story rather than exploited it.
This film was about the life of the producer’s mother Diane Polley, but more importantly how we tell stories and what we remember from the stories we are told. Sarah Polley does this by using interviews with her family members and friends of her mother’s. I think that the way Sarah created this film was very interesting and I am not sure that I enjoyed watching it. I think that the way she used interviews and old clips of film from her past life was awesome and helped move the story along. I felt like it was very slow and all the secrets took forever to get out. I think that this is probably what she wanted in the film. I do not think that there were any ethical concerns with her storytelling style. I think that it was very unique, but at the same time it was very natural. We followed Sarah through the process of her finding information about her mother by seeing how she did the interviews and listened to the story as her father narrated it.
What is the film's narrative/story? What do you feel about how the director presented this story? Do you feel mislead? Do you have any ethical concerns with her storytelling style?
The film tells the story of her mother's love life and affair that led to her birth, but it was all kept secret and only uncovered after her death. It is complicated though, as in it doesn't truly tell her mother's story, but rather it tells the story of how her mother and her mother's choices affected so many people. I thought the presentation of this story was especially clever and created, as it chose to focus on this nuance instead of the actual story of her mother. It nit picked people's personal perceptions of her and then brought them to life through recreation because to them, these are their reality of their mother. While the stories differed, I thought this recreation was extremely clever as it thus made each persons story a reality rather than just showing real footage that didnt necessarily fit with the stories being told. I truly was mislead throughout most of the documentary, as I thought the footage was real for much of it, but after taking a step back and examining why she chose to do so, it makes the actual message much more powerful, as it proves how memories and stories really are our reality even if they aren't reality.
The documentary "Stories We Tell" follows the life of Diane Polley, who died of cancer years ago. This story is told by her loved ones who knew her best. It is an interesting documentary because it is made by Diane's youngest daughter, Sarah. Sarah's mission in this documentary is to follow her mother's life to inevitably find out who her real father is, which she does. In the process, we see multiple individuals all tell parts of the same story: the life of Diane. This documentary captures very raw emotion through a unique technique on perspectives. I really liked how the director and doc team presented the story in this manner, because we got to see how subjective our perceptions can be. Even though one thing occurs, two people can perceive this occurrence very differently. I also enjoyed this documentary because the narrative of Diane's life was so inciting; it grabbed my attention immediately; along with Sarah's quest to discover who her real father is. I do not feel mislead in this doc, but I can see how some people might feel this way. It seems that a lot of the b-roll footage used to portray Diane's life was in fact a reenactment; however I was wondering that this was the case the entire time because it would've been incredible if some of this great footage actually existed in the quality that it did. However, I don't feel mislead because the "b-roll" still did an excellent job at portraying the narrative of the film. Plus I'm sure Sarah had a lot to do with the reenactments, and she probably wanted to make sure that they were as accurate as possible to do justice to her late mother. The only ethical concerns I could see in this story were that it got very personal at times, which could make some people uncomfortable. However, I didn't have a problem with this as it also added to the narrative and emotional pull of the film. All in all, it was a fantastic film that I will highly suggest to some of my peers.
The documentary, Stories We Tell, is a film made by Sarah Polley and it follows her recounting the story of finding out the truth about who her biological father is as well as the family's background. The film is told through family members and close friends so we get various versions, angles, and interpretations of the same events that happened in the past. The film began by telling the story of Sarah's mother, Diane, and then the film transitioned into becoming more about Sarah and her situation. I liked how the film focused on the family's background because it was able to show how it affected Sarah and her siblings.
The way Sarah decided to tell the story was unique and I liked it because she understands that everyone has their own version of a story and it was nice to get such a broad picture of events. She used various interviews, pictures, and old home footage to also tell the story. Since this is essentially also a film about the filmmaker herself, it would have been nice to see her get interviewed because it seemed she was almost hiding behind the camera at times. Yes, she wanted to tell the story through other people's accounts and she had no problem breaking the fourth wall and introducing herself in the film but I feel like she could have gone deeper into film instead of just reading letters or narration. I'm still unsure about the use of the old super-8 footage because it seems like she's trying to manipulate a feeling of old memories. I can see why she choose to use it but it feels recreated at times. In the end, however, I appreciate her experimental way of telling the story and it kept me engaged the whole time.
Stories We Tell is a documentary about young filmmaker Sarah Polley's journey to finding the truth about her family history, specifically her biological father. The story highlights the life of Sarah's deceased mother, Diane. The film reveals Sarah's discoveries in an incredibly creative and unique way. The way that the interview footage, B-roll, and the (recreated) super-8 footage were layered together made the audience captivated in the story and it made the narrative much more powerful. Though I do not have ethical concerns about the way that the film was put together, I can see why some people might feel mislead with the reenactments. The story lines and creative narratives of the films we watch get more complex every week, and this was one of my favorites thus far.
In the documentary "Stories We Tell," there are multiple simultaneous stories being told. There are three levels of the narrative that I see at work in the documentary. At the base level, film director Sarah Polley is telling the complicated life story of her deceased mother, Diane Polley through the stories of family members and close friends. The next level of the narrative is Sarah Polley's very personal journey to discover the truth of who her biological father is and how that truth changes her view of her family and the world. The final level of narrative is exploring the nature of human storytelling by listening side-by-side to the stories of the family members, lovers, coworkers, and friends of Diane Polley, who each have a completely different perspective on the story but together paint a vivid image of the director's mother.
I feel that director Sarah Polley presented this story in a very honest and truthful manner, which I really respected and enjoyed. By presenting the documentary in a self-reflexive manner, the director's motives for making the film are not hidden- in fact they are front and center to the story. The self-reflexivity makes the viewer trust the filmmakers and trust that what is being said is honest.
Like others have mentioned, the only time I felt mislead was during the reenactments filmed on Super 8 footage. It gave the illusion that this footage was taken from family archives, when in fact it was directed with actors and fiction filmmaking techniques. Some of the footage may in fact have been family archives, but because of the filming style, it was impossible to tell what was real and what was created by the filmmakers. But again, even the Super 8 reenactments were self reflexive, because we see Sarah Polley filming the scenes at the end of the film- so nothing is hidden from the viewer. I do not have ethical concerns with the way that this film was told. Perhaps at times the director was brutal and pushed her subjects far, but that is what makes the film great and brings out the most honest human emotion and feeling from the story that viewers can truely connect with.
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