Canadian Film Review: Stories We Tell (2013)

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Director: Sarah Polley

There's a line in No Country For Old Men when Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is asked if a story he's just told is a true story, and he replies that it's true insofar as it's a story. It's a line that always comes to my mind whenever a story is billed as being true, as having actually happened, or as being based on actual events. It's true, but it's "true" because a story being told is always told from a specific and limited point-of-view, one which can relate reality as the teller sees it but which may, without being a lie, differ greatly from someone else's telling of the same event. Sarah Polley's third feature as a director knows and exploits this fact to perfect effect, telling not one true story but a story mosaic concerning the same core events. It's a moving and skillfully crafted picture that confirms Polley as one of the most interesting and exciting emerging filmmakers working today.

Canadian Film Review: Take This Waltz (2012)

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Director: Sarah Polley
Starring: Michelle Williams, Luke Kirby, Seth Rogan

It's difficult to think of Take This Waltz without comparing it to writer/director Sarah Polley's previous film, Away From Her, or to star Michelle Williams' previous film about an unhappy marriage, Blue Valentine (not to mention the wealth of other stories of this kind). Taken in consideration with those films, Take This Waltz is a bit of a disappointment. Taken on its own terms, it's a perfectly fine, though never great, film about restlessness in the face of commitment and finality (and, hey, if Williams is in danger of becoming the cinematic patron saint of unhappy wives, at least she finds different notes to play in each of them).

Canadian Film Review: The Sweet Hereafter (1997)

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Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Ian Holm, Sarah Polley

It's dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can't forget I am bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me,
...
And just as I became assured
My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the hill,
Left alone againt my will
- "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" by Robert Browning

Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter is not a film about discovering the cause of a terrible accident, nor is it a revenge drama, a story about a lawyer on a crusade for justice, or even a peek behind the curtain hiding the secrets of a small Canadian community. It isn’t even really about the dead, but a lament for those who survive and are forced to carry on hollowed by the loss. The characters move forward as if dragging weights behind them and yet the film itself is graceful, not intruding on their pain but stepping delicately around it.

Much of the story focuses on Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm), a lawyer who comes to the town to recruit the residents in a class action suit against the makers of the school bus that went off the road and through the icy lake. The residents look at him with suspicion, but he’s not a money-grubbing ambulance chaser. He approaches the situation not with greedy excitement, but with resignation and the sadness of his own experiences. He has a daughter who is as good as dead, so lost is she in drug addiction. He knows sorrow and is driven by the need to hold someone accountable – if not for his own family tragedy, than those of others.

Some of the families join his cause, including Risa (Alberta Watson) and Wendell (Maury Chayken), who provide Stevens with a rundown of the other residents in town; the Ottos (Earl Pastko and Arsinee Khanjian), artists described by everyone else as hippies; and the Burnells, whose daughter, Nicole (Sarah Polley), is one of the few survivors of the accident. In scenes which take place prior to the accident, Nicole reads from “The Pied Piper,” unsuspecting of the way in which she will come to identify with the boy left behind. Like him she has a physical reminder of the tragedy, as she’s left paralyzed in the accident, and she must contend with the loneliness of being the only child left in town and the responsibility of, essentially, living for all those children who will be forever frozen in time. She also identifies strongly with the Pied Piper character. When asked why the Piper leads the children away rather than using his powers to force the townspeople to pay him the money they had promised him, she says simply that he does it because he’s angry. Nicole is angry, too, and at a crucial moment tells a lie in order to hurt the person who has made her angry.

There is a lot to this story, much of which gets left unsaid and that silence, that absence of words that ought to be there, makes it all the more powerful. Egoyan doesn’t allow the emphasis to be on the crash; as the story moves back and forth between the time before and the time after the accident, it keeps touching on that fateful trip, watching the bus make its way over the snow covered road with a feeling of the inevitable rather than the ominous. As far as direction goes, there is absolutely no room for improvement – Egoyan’s work is confident and masterful and the images he’s created are haunting.

Ian Holm and Sarah Polley do most of the heavy lifting as far as the actors go, though there’s not a bad performance in the bunch. Polley is an actress that I’ve always liked and here, as elsewhere, she suggests a maturity far beyond her years. Her soulful performance stands out even in a film where everything is top notch.

Canadian Film Review: Away From Her (2007)

Director: Sarah Polley
Starring: Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis

This is quite simply a fantastic film, and one that treats its characters with a lot more respect than the vast majority of films. Consider how often characters in their sixties are allowed to be the focal point of films, and consider also that though those characters may be allowed to be in love, rarely is enough consideration given them that they’re allowed to feel lust. This is a story that knows that life carries on beyond the age of forty and that feelings don’t become fossilized and forgotten and die away in later age. That the film is guided by the hand of a 27-year-old director is astounding.

The film is adapted from a short story by Alice Munro called The Bear Came Over The Mountain and is true to the original without relying on viewer’s having read it to provide depth to the film. The movie is very carefully paced, allowing us to get to know the characters and get some sense of the history that exists between them. The film also makes excellent use of the surrounding landscape, using it to complement the development of the story and the characters. Most of the film takes place during the winter, literally taking place around Christmas time, and figuratively taking place during the winter of Fiona (Christie) and Grant’s (Pinsent) life together. There are moments when the landscape is so vast and blank with snow that we get a sense of the loneliness that these two people, torn apart from each other by nature, must be feeling.

This is a film without pretence. It doesn’t pretend that a marriage that has survived for some forty years has done so easily or without obstacles. It is established fairly early that Grant used to have a roving eye, that Fiona forgave him and they managed to make the marriage work afterwards – which, of course, doesn’t mean that the business was ever forgotten. After Fiona is checked into a care facility and develops an attachment to another patient, Grant wonders if perhaps she’s just playing a game with him, punishing him for the affairs that he had in the past. Later, in a conversation with a nurse who has become a confidante, he remarks that in spite of their problems, things were never that bad. She replies (in what is one of the best scenes in the film) that in her experience, it’s always the husbands who think things were never that bad, and wonders if the wives would agree.

The performances in the film are excellent across the board. Olympia Dukakis, as the wife of the patient Fiona develops a relationship with, brings a wonderful mixture of stability and fragility to her character. There’s a scene where she leaves a message on Grant's machine, asking him out on what is officially not a date, even though it kind of is a date, and then sits alone in her kitchen waiting for him to call her back. Her loneliness is tangible, and Dukakis plays it without vanity. She has no illusions about her life or the potential of a relationship with Grant. She’s informed by a lifetime of experience, and she’s entering on this new adventure with clear eyes. It’s a brave performance, playing as she does a character who could easily veer into being pathetic, but never does. Dukakis brings a solidity to her that helps ground the film.

Christie is wonderful as Fiona, and absolutely deserves all the praise she’s gotten. There are scenes where she doesn’t speak, but simply looks at her surroundings and we sense her grasping for understanding even as she disappears deeper and deeper into herself. The performance is never showy and never rings false. However, for me, it’s Pinsent who really carries the film. He spends much of the film in denial – convinced that she’s just forgetful, convinced that she’ll only be in the care facility for a short time, convinced that she’ll get better – and then slowly comes to accept things for being the way that they are. We know that he’s behaved badly in his marriage, but we also believe that he cares about Fiona’s happiness. When he first approaches the Dukakis character at the beginning of the film, we think maybe that he’s come to ask her to remove her husband from the facility. Later, we find that she’s already done that and Grant has come to request that she put him back in, because Fiona is depressed without his company. Grant is jealous of the relationship, but willing to encourage it if it will help keep Fiona from getting sicker. Like Christie, Pinsent never rings a false note and it’s a shame that he’s been largely ignored in favour of his co-star.

This really is a great character film, one in which people are allowed to speak and interact with each other in ways that feel utterly natural. The acting is great and the direction is solid and sure-footed. Polley will have a lot to live up to, should she decide to step behind the camera again. Here’s hoping that she does.

Canadian Film Review: Last Night (1998)

Director: Don McKellar
Starring: Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, Sarah Polley, Callum Keith Rennie

How do you know this is a Canadian film? Well, for one thing, there aren’t any characters running around, trying to defeat the insurmountable threat. For another, look at the scene where Sandra (Oh) goes to the supermarket to pick a bottle of wine. The store is a mess, having already been looted and ransacked but she finds two bottles. She considers both then, deciding on one, puts the other back on the shelf.

Most apocalypse movies are about the threat (the asteroid in Armageddon is far and away more interesting that any of the film’s characters), but this is about how people cope with the knowledge that the threat is imminent and can’t be stopped. The film doesn’t explain to us why the world is going to end – the narrative starts after everyone in the film already knows about it, has panicked over it, and has ultimately begun to make peace with the knowledge. This isn’t a film that explores what the end of the world will be like as much as it explores the things we value as human beings, the traditions and experiences that we wish to hold on to even when we know it’s pointless. A woman makes Christmas dinner for her family, even though it isn’t Christmas, because they’ll never experience it again. A DJ counts down his top 500 songs of all time (“Don’t bother calling in. This time it’s my choice”). A woman runs through the streets, keeping time for anyone who will listen. Craig (Rennie) is going to have as much sex as he can with as many people as he can. Sandra wants to be in love. And Patrick (McKellar) seems to wander from one person’s last night to another.

This is a film full of small, poignant moments. Sandra and Patrick, whom circumstances have essentially stuck together, try to know each other and make whatever relationship they can create matter for whatever time is left. Sandra has spent the day trying to get across town to be with her husband, but as it becomes increasingly apparent that she won’t make it on time, she begins to focus her attention on Patrick. She cautions him to hurry up and make her fall in love with him. To face the end without someone you love, and who loves you, seems tragic. They make the best of it and, when the end does come, they face it kissing each other.

The scenes of the Christmas dinner are the ones that have always stuck with me. Patrick and his sister (Polley) are given as presents the toys they cherished most as children. Later, one character begins to lament on behalf of the children of the world, who are going to miss out on so much. Another replies that she shouldn’t feel bad for the children – they don’t know what they’re missing. It’s the older people, those who know all that is about to be lost and swept away, for whom she should feel sorry.

The film finds a nice balance between drama and comedy, with most of the comedy surrounding the character Craig. Patrick goes to Craig to borrow one of his cars so that Sandra can get across town. Craig refuses because his cars are antique, still clinging apparently to the idea that life goes on even though he’s been engaging in an end of the world marathon of sex. After refusing the car, he offers Patrick a chance to be his gay experience. When Patrick expresses reluctance, Craig tries to reassure him by explaining that he’s already had anal sex so it could come in some other variety. There is sadness in Craig’s scenes, but for the most part they add levity to the film.

To really appreciate this film, you must know that it was made and released as the millennium loomed over our heads. It might seem silly now, but at the time there was a sense of unease about what would happen when the clock struck twelve and ushered in the year 2000. The more extreme end saw people readying bunkers and preparing for nothing short of the complete breakdown of civilized society. Of course, nothing happened. The clock struck, one millennium passed and another began and life went on. The film itself isn’t about the millennium, but it is very much about how we feared it and what we were afraid might happen at midnight. In the film, the clock strikes. “It’s over,” declares the marathon woman and then… fade to light.