Stories We Tell (2012)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Stories We Tell (2012) – S. Polley

I went into this without knowing quite what it was…which may be best (so perhaps skip this review and head straight to the film, which comes very highly recommended).  I thought this was a fictional drama, likely to be heavy-going, but it’s not; instead it exists in the grey area between fiction and documentary (where Werner Herzog and Orson Welles sometimes trod).  Sarah Polley (Canadian star of The Sweet Hereafter, 1997, and Go, 1999, and director of Away from Her, 2006) begins by providing some biographical details about her mother, but it soon becomes apparent that a biosketch is not the real aim here, when we are introduced to Sarah’s father, brothers and sisters, and family friends who are all asked to recount stories – or actually one story that is slowly revealed – about Sarah’s mother (in front of Sarah herself, the offscreen interviewer).  With Rashomon a distant forebear, we come to see how each narrator may have let their version of the mother’s life be coloured by their own values and vested interests.  Polley herself is even challenged about whether she is revealing the truth or refashioning the hours of recorded footage in the editing room to reflect her own needs or beliefs.  Moreover, some of the Super-8 footage from the 1970s turns out to have been created later with actors and shot to look dated by Polley and her team. If this sounds like a bit of a mess, it’s not – it turns out to be a moving drama (yes) about human relationships, the choices we make in life and their consequences, and above all, the ways in which we then digest and report those events to others.  In the end, this is compelling reflexive cinema that comments on its own genesis and biases even while managing to tell us a real-life mystery story with a number of surprises.  Highly recommended.