Featuring: Michael Polley, Harry Gulkin, John Buchan, Susy Buchan, Mark Polley, Joanna Polley, Sarah Polley
Director: Sarah Polley
Writers: Sarah Polley, Michael Polley (also narration)
2013-14 Lotterywest Perth Film Festival season dates:
Somerville: 6–12 Jan, 8pm
Joondalup Pines: 14–19 Jan, 8pm
Reviewer: rolanstein
Verdict: A riveting, moving, genre-bending mind-boggler of a film.
Review:
Director Sarah Polley was a small child when she lost her mother Diane to cancer. This film documents her quest to discover the person her mother was, but delivers far more than she, her family and others she interviews – and the viewer – bargain for.
Layer by layer, interview by interview, a composite and sometimes contradictory picture of Diane emerges. All seem to agree that she was charismatic and exuberant, a party-loving, life-embracing thespian whose larger-than-life presence endures among those who knew her. However, she is described by some as guileless, an open book, by others as secretive, with her sunny façade concealing a troubled soul within.
Not so extraordinary, you say? Who among us is without secrets? And are not perceptions within families certain to differ, given the complex nature of family and family dynamics? Continue reading Stories We Tell Movie Review