Stories We Tell
Director: Sarah Polley.
Actors: Sarah Polley, Harry Gulkin., Michael Polley
Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001
Genre(s): Documentary
Running time: 108 minutes
Tricky one, this - what to talk up and what to keep schtum about? Sarah Polley, the writer-director of Away From Her and Take This Waltz, lets her documentary unfold with the same developments and twists you'd see in a film, so it's hard to talk about the real reasons to go see this without giving a few surprises away. So I'll do my best to urge you to see this documentary despite the sparing details below.
"Can you tell the whole story from start to finish in your own words?" Polley asks her father, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends before they've even got a chance to fix their mic. It catches them off guard, with one asking if he can pee first - this, we take it, is going to be a long and meaty one. Polley wants to find out about her mother, an actress who was determined to enjoy what life had to offer but we're warned early on that the mask of joy hid some secrets and over the course of the documentary these secrets are teased out…
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry attempted something similar a few years back; The Thorn In The Heart was a documentary on his family history, but appealed to solely to the Gondrys. While Stories We Tell is a tad self-indulgent too - Polley wants us to be as interested in her life as she is and that's just not happening - the story has some universal truths and fears and raises questions about the fickleness of love, the untrustworthy nature of memories, and our place in this world.
It's riveting stuff for the audience, like we've been granted permission to eavesdrop on a family therapy session; what unfolds goes some way to explaining what inspired her Take This Waltz. Polley may hang around longer than she's welcome but she keeps things busy, flicking back and forth between interviewees and cutting to a treasure trove of home video footage, to keep interest levels high. With different takes on the same story, all overshadowed by her father's memoirs, and from which he narrates, it's fun for the audience to play the guessing game too.
