Family proves intriguing, blending home movies and acted scenes
“Stories We Tell” is the third film directed by Canadian actress Sarah Polley, whose career has the distinct pattern of not following one. She starred in Terry Gilliam’s “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” the 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead,” and the creepy sci-fi flicks “eXistenZ” and “Splice.” Her first two features are as different as they can be. “Away From Her”, directed by Polley, is a deeply moving and beautifully acted drama starring Julie Christie (in an Oscar-nominated performance) as a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s. Polley received an Oscar nomination for the film for Best Adapted Screenplay. Her second film, “Take This Waltz,” is a lovely romantic dramedy starring Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, and Sarah Silverman about a married woman (Williams) who finds that she is falling in love with one of her neighbors.
“Stories We Tell” is a documentary, an almost investigative piece, about her own family. Viewers will enjoy it most going in blind, not knowing anything about her family situation. I will say though, watching these talking heads reveal their past is more captivating and engrossing than any CGI-laden action film that has come out this summer.
The film includes a mix of present day interviews with many members of her family and family friends, along with old home movies and photographs shot by the family, and, most amazingly, footage Polley shot on 8 mm film with actors playing her parents. These recreated scenes were so realistic and believable that I did not even realize they were not actual home movies until later in the film, when a grown-up Polley is shown standing with the actors playing her parents. The period detail, the costumes, the camera work, the actors and the film stock are all dead on. I was wondering how Polley had so much old footage, and, as it turned out, she did not. She shot new footage that looks so convincing that it seamlessly blends into the family’s actual home movies.
So why is listening to a bunch of strangers talk about their family so interesting? For one, the story at the center of the film is simultaneously deeply personal to the filmmaker yet universal. Even if what happened to Polley has not happened to everyone, the feelings brought up in the film — unfilled love, never entirely knowing even your closest loved ones — have touched everyone. Although her three films as a director are vastly different in genre and tone, they are all about how love is messy and complicated.
By using her own family and putting a part of her life story into a documentary, Polley has made a thought provoking film about memory, family and love. Her family lived through the same experiences but each one tells the story a little differently; everyone has his or her own perspective.
The main reason people love movies is because they like hearing stories. They connect us with other people and invoke empathy. The title being “Stories We Tell,” Polley has made a film that is not only about her family’s story but about how we tell stories and what they mean to us. “Stories We Tell” opens at The Nickelodeon June 28th.