Stories We Tell
4 November 2022
Director: Sarah Polley
See
Him: Stories We Tell directed by Sarah Polley is a documentary about the filmmaker’s family and the rumor of her mother’s affair before her death and the director’s dad not being her biological father. Polley interviews her family and her mother’s friends to recreate an oral history surround their lives in Canada, the affair, her mother’s death and its aftermath.
Her: “Stories We Tell” by Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley where she tells the story of her family by interviewing different members trying to unravel what really happened. Who's her dad, collective memory of her mother and expectedly delivering some other intimidating details.
Think
Him: Polley’s parents were theater actors, and they had a super 8 camera which means that the remembrances are painted with home movies. She was a child actress herself when her mother Diane died of cancer, and she was raised by Michael, her dad, mov ed out and dropped out of school young. Became an indy darling, then director, making this film she met a producer Harry, her biological father.
Her: Great example of how the story can be told from many different points of view making it hard to identify what the actual truth is. And does it even exist if for each person it means something different. I liked how at the start many of the interviewees did not want to get into it, thought it’s pointless and not that interesting to anyone outside of the family circle. Like the detail that Sarah decided not to specify in lower thirds in what relation each of those people are to her, so we only find out if they say it.
Feel
Him: Polley’s next project is Women Talking, a cerebral post #metoo movie I intend to see in a cinema. Stories We Tell demonstrates she not only thinks deeply about her subjects, but is also inventive. She got Michael to professionally record the letters he sent her after the revelation of paternity. That he was still her dad and that they were closer for the ordeal, and in a way he became the man her mother Diane loved, not just on stage. But being able to take material that’s raw and real, and make it into a precious complex creation. A father-daughter relationship. Sarah is the product of Diane and Michael, and Harry too. A woman who recreated her history, cast actors to play her parents, in manufacturing super 8 movies that felt realer than real.
Her: It’s very hard to make your parents and grandparents open up about their own lives beyond the facts and known achievements. When I was younger I didn’t feel importance at undigging or questioning or questioning why these decisions were made because it just didn’t feel important but now I’m starting to understand how none of what you’re told should be taken as an absolute truth, because it is still someone’s point of view. The funny thing is that even though after interviewing all these people Sarah seems to know much more, including who her father was, I bet she has more questions than before. The only conclusions that can be made are how all of this can affect your present and future.
