Families create their own narratives. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy A powerful and thoughtful film, it is also not what it at first seems, which is part of the point Polley appears to be interested in making. Immensely thought-provoking and reflective, Polley delivers an enticing documentary about the theme of obligatory dark family secrets and turns her unassuming project into an intimate and compelling jigsaw puzzle. story can change its impact. Diane Polley is described by one and all as a woman who wanted to live life to the fullest. Her first feature, "Away From Her," was a heartbreaking tour de force, showing Polley's breathtaking confidence as a first-time director. and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. Stories We Tell chronicles the climax of Polley’s research, when she found the truth: she was indeed her father’s spitting, fighting image. Leuke en inspirerende verhalen voor vrouwen die nog vol in het leven staan. 1 / Video . Perf. Canada. In speaking about "Stories We Tell," it is important to avoid revealing the surprises hidden within the film, surprises of fact and surprises of Polley's structure, because the discovery of said surprises is where the film packs its greatest and most indelible punch. G reat stories have a way of staying with us. She also discovered the restless vitality that made her mother a fuller, larger figure that Sarah could have known. Dir. Polley lets the wrinkles remain. Time Out says. A quasi-Derridan, deconstructionist enquiry by Sarah Polley into her family history. A collection of 26 of the finest stories by the finest women writers tocome out of the U.S. and Canada in the past 50 years. Stories We Tell is een gratis online magazine voor voruwen van 50-plus. Can the truth ever actually be known about anything? This is the most functional tale of dysfunctional-family drama I've ever heard. For Michael Haneke, it is a lie in service of the truth. And what a fitting eulogy that is. In “Stories We Tell,” the actress and director Sarah Polley sat down with relatives and friends to talk about her mother, who died when Ms. Polley was 11. At one point, one of Polley's interview subjects balks at the idea of having everyone tell the same story. The storytellers talk about her life, her acting, her children and her marriage, and Polley doesn't privilege one version over another. 15 reviews. Boldly putting her entire family on camera, Sarah Polley unwraps the riddle of her parentage with exquisite craft. In Stories We Tell komen diverse familieleden, vrienden en kennissen en familiegebeurtenissen voorbij. She is more interested in how her family members interact with their own memories, and where they might intersect or diverge. For Jean Luc-Godard, cinema is the truth. The loss they have suffered is Image . In his August 29 Maclean's blog post, Johnson, one of the film critics who'd kept Polley's secret, wrote: The story follows her quest to investigate the circumstances of her birth. We zien beelden van Sarah Polleys moeder door de tijd heen. Ty Burr May 16, 2013. Documentary. experiments with the expected narrative structures, pushing us to The result is a story of great sadness, great joy and great entertainment. Sarah Polley got her start young in Canadian television, but she showed a rebellious streak early, dropping out of acting altogether as a teenager to focus on politics. She was an actress, but she gave that up to have her family. We review Sarah Polley's documentary "Stories We Tell". The marriage to Michael was happy at first, but discontent grew. consider not just the meaning of stories but how the way we tell the Diane Polley comes to us in fragments, and we are forced to re-adjust our interpretation of her throughout the film as new details are revealed. 108 min, col. and b/w. Focus of New York . Please enter your email address and we will email you a new password. Previous Next. Polley resisted the call of stardom, doing what interested her, and making short films through the Canadian Film Centre's prestigious director's program. Feels Like a Product of the Publicity Machine. The answers In both of these films, and now in "Stories We Tell," Polley Her father, Michael Polley, is an actor as well (familiar to anyone who was a fan of the Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows, where, incidentally, Sarah Polley had a role in the third season). Stories We Tell. Stories We Tell Review. One person says that her walk was so emphatic "she made the record skip," an eloquent image. Stories We Tell, review. Forgot your password? As far as he is concerned, only two people have the "right" to tell that story, and it is the two people involved. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Julie Christie as Best Actress, and Polley for her adaptation of Alice Munro's short story). [Full review in Spanish]. The work of a professional director... that can guide the viewer's emotions and attention. Stories We Tell – review Sarah Polley's portrait of her parents' marriage is a gripping tale, full of richness, tenderness and emotional complexity A cinematic love letter to her parents … The interviews in "Stories We Stories are passed on from generation to generation, and in this way the past continues to live, but it can also be obscured or distorted. The questions Polley asks are not always easy. Unfortunately, Stories We Tell lacks the historical sense, in keeping with most contemporary movies, that could have made it far more compelling. incalculable. Stories We Tell. Stories We Tell opens with an extended shot of Michael Polley (director Sarah’s father) reading out a prepared script in a recording studio, his daughter sitting opposite her. It's thrilling, with emotional highs and lows that are intensified by the fact that we're watching real people-a real family-have their world shaken and turned upside-down. and the Terms and Policies, Stories We Tell is one of those movies you watch on a screen and replay in your head for days, moving between its many levels of inquiry and touched, always, by Polley’s compassion toward her relatives in particular and people in general. Families create their own narratives. Fiercely unsentimental, never nostalgic, [Sarah] Polley's version of the story is simultaneously always trying to get that much closer to the truth. Stories We Tell sets out to tell a simple story of Diane Polley, but then forever changes the documentary format, as well as, our basic understanding of simple human functions. Stories in Stories We Tell. Life is messy and Diane Polley's narrative is messy. Check out the exclusive TVGuide.com movie review and see our movie rating for Stories We Tell Join / Sign Up Keep track of your favorite shows and movies, across all your devices. Everyone remembers differently. Previous Next Show Grid. Joan Didion famously wrote, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Yet through its clarity and sincerity her documentary gathers greater meaning, transcending its humble origins and effortlessly enrapturing the audience with its bittersweet tale. The Stories We Tell: The writing is fantastic and topics are diverse, with in-depth and beautifully written looks at moments and movements. By all accounts this shouldn’t work, as the decisions that the documentarian makes when crafting the narrative cannot possibly be objective. Stories We Tell is clearly a form of creative catharsis for Polley. Inadvertently, in his criticism, he expresses Polley's whole theme. Filmmaker and actor Sarah Polley is used to being filmed, but her family are not. Authors include Ann Beattie, Ann Tyler, Tama Janowitz and Alice Walker. By the end of "Stories We Tell," I am left with the feeling that there's still so much I don't know about Diane Polley. Polley's touch here is gentle and yet insistent. Everyone still misses Diane. May 23, 2013 May 23rd, 2013. rating: 5. A finely-crafted and incredibly moving work. 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. Lou Lumenick May 9, 2013. She asks each storyteller to "tell the story from the beginning until now," and as they begin, hesitantly at first, Polley supplements the story with old photographs and home movies: beautiful footage of her mother, cavorting on the beach, laughing at parties or around the pool, and, fascinatingly, singing "Ain't Misbehavin'" in what looks like an old black-and-white audition tape. It is a historical documentary in which the history is entirely personal, concerning the story of one fairly large Canadian family, in particular the matriarch, whose absence by dint of an early death is the hole around which the film is built. She is not interested in protecting her version (whatever it may be), or protecting her mother. Dir/scr: Sarah Polley. The pay-off that Polley leads us to is real enough to hang a movie on. Joan Didion famously wrote, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Elke gezinslid heeft zijn eigen verhaal en zijn eigen visie op het verleden en de waarheid. Diane Polley was, in some respects, a trapped woman. In Stories We Tell, director Sarah Polley attempts what I think is the impossible. Deconstructing as she goes, she turns the home movie, real and faux, into new genre of investigative memoir. Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley takes a sledgehammer to the door of the family crypt in this cine-memoir of her late mother, but reveals disappointingly little. It tells a story - one story, not several - that isn't really much, and then it doesn't bother to go deep into it. But life is not that simple, and when you learn more about Diane, when you learn some of those "secrets," and one in particular, the cliched narrative thread falls apart. This movie is unusual because it's actually a biography of the filmmaker and her family, narrated by her father, "starring" her siblings and herself, along with Polley's relatives and family friends. Stories We Tell (2012) is a documentary written and directed by Sarah Polley. The surprises do not operate as cheap "Gotcha" moments, but instead draw back veils to show levels, shades, nuances. Sorting through those secrets through Polley's candid interviews with her father, family members, and close family friends is fascinating to watch. 88. A film that excavates layers of myth and memory to find the … Sign up here. It’s the same in every family. Family arguments often come down to who "owns" the narrative, or which version is decided upon as the "true" one. It's a common story with a common narrative thread, familiar to us all: she wanted more out of life than just being a mother and a wife, but she was hemmed in by traditional responsibilities. Stories We Tell is a rock band formed in a suburb of Kansas City. Stories We Tell (M, 109mins) Directed by Sarah Polley **** Having touchingly and hauntingly captured human frailties of others in Away From Her … So it proves in Sarah Polley’s sublime cine-memoir Stories We Tell, a tender, candid and thrilling exploration of truth, memory and the nature of perspective. Diane Polley seemed to be an extroverted fun-loving person, and she was, and yet obviously the well was deep (so deep you "can't reach bottom"). But … Stories are passed on from generation to generation, and in this way the past continues to live, but it can also be obscured or distorted. With Michael Polley, John Buchan, Mark Polley, Joanna Polley. Unfortunately, Stories We Tell lacks the historical sense, in keeping with most contemporary movies, that could have made it far more compelling. Read full review. Michael was a solitary type of guy, and Diane loved crowds and excitement. Sarah Polley continues to become one of the most innovative and inventive directors working today and its proved by what she spills out on the silver screen in her newest endeavor Stories We Tell. Stories told again and again have a way of neatening things up. Don't have an account? by David Braga. Peacock's Rutherford Falls Wants To Be the Next Parks and Recreation, The Beautiful World of Native Comedy: Michael Greyeyes on Rutherford Falls, Philly D.A. Sarah Polley's fascinating documentary, "Stories We Tell," is ostensibly about her mother, Diane Polley, who died in 1990. But once it does, it doesn't stop. 2 talking about this. Stories We Tell. So there is already a distancing element in place. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here. By Mark Adams, chief film critic2012-08-30T06:44:00+01:00. At times, her siblings ask her, speaking to her behind the camera, "Well, what do you remember about that time?". Note that “dimensions/levels” is not an … This important selection of news stories stands to be both instructive to students of journalism and a treat for its fans. All rights reserved. Yes, it is a simple story, but it makes one question if what he or she remembers actually happened. 4 out of 5 stars. De film schetst een portret van een intelligent, warm en liefhebbend gezin. Previous Next Hide Grid. It's a film about making a film, and, as Polley tells her father, she sees the interviews as a kind of "interrogation process.". Some, over time, may even take on a life of their own. This is a family talking to each other. Top Menu . Her role in Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter" (1997) was hailed by American critics, who treated her as a newcomer (although she had been working for years in Canada by that point). As a woman who wanted to live life to the fullest, Mark Polley John... 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