Stories We Tell (2013)

Truly Dreadful Film

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

What is it really? Each person has his / her own. What is true in the stories we tell about our lives and feelings? This excellent film tells us about that in an astonishingly good way. The several intervenients whose lives intersect with each other, very intensely in some cases (most of them belong to the same family) are telling us their versions of what they know (or think they know) about a woman already dead and who is the mother of some of them. And they do it in a very natural and spontaneous way. Who and what was her after all? This movie has much to do with human nature and human relations mainly in the family and conjugal fields. Why reading fiction books if in our normal lives it may happen such interesting and important situations as the ones told in the best novels? A movie that must be indeed be seen.

This is a recommended-to-watch movie, However, there were few things missing in the story. I think the story was told too good to be true. I mean everybody seem to be happy and satisfied with what happened. No matter how Dian had been behaving irresponsible and careless towards her children, her spouses and her lover in different occasions, they all speak as if because of Dians circumstances it was all right. It appears to me that since she has died years ago, everybody is OK with the facts and nobody is complaining and doesn't remember any resentment or doesn't want to remember it. Sarah is not taking part in telling thestory. she doesn't contribute to movie like others. she questions and directs but doesn't narrate anything herself. doesn't speak about her feelings. her point of view. all I can guess, is that she liked her mum(or maybe the story itself) enough, to edit the movie in a way that depicts everything being wonderful.

Sarah Polly's intimate and unique documentary Stories We Tell was one of last year's biggest festival and critical hits in the doco field with her fresh approach to telling a story using 8mm film to recreate the past and talking heads to tell the present hitting a chord with audiences. As one of the most critically acclaimed movies of last year hype for the movie remains strong and in that respect Stories We Tell is an overrated movie.To get the most out of Stories one must be wholly invested in the concerns of Polly's family and the eventual revelations that come forth from her questioning and investigating of the past but if your investment is minimal as I found mine was any emotional impact the film clearly has for many is dulled and therefore the film as a whole nothing more than a slightly intriguing piece of life in all its glories and in all its hidden secrets. It must be said however that the films early stages are quite promising and downright riveting it's not until revelations are made clear that the film starts to struggle and you get the sense this is more a film for Polly herself than we the watchers.It's nice that Polly chooses to air some very personnel and deep seeded emotions in the way of this film but one question's if what is being found out is of much benefit for someone not in the Polly family. Great documentaries like Searching for Sugarman or Dear Zachary work on emotional levels because what is being discovered as the film and participants go on is relatable in more large scale and universal ways, Stories showpiece just does not have the power to affect like this. The film also has a waft of self-importance that allows proceedings to sadly go in circles and length wise drag out to near two hours which with this format gets old fast.Being critical as I have been, Stories is still a movie that will appeal to many a wide ranging audience and for people that may have been through similar family circumstances a tale that will really hit home. For the rest of us though Stories sadly is one of last year's more overrated documentaries and in a genre that is consistently producing the goods it will be quickly forgotten in the wave of other quality entries.3 storytellers out of 5 For more movie reviews and opinions check out -www.jordanandeddie.wordpress.com

STORIES WE TELL opens with an extended shot of Michael Polley (director Sarah's father) reading out a prepared script in a recording studio, with his daughter facing him. This sequence serves as a metaphor for the entire film, which concentrates in depth on the nature of story- telling. It is fundamentally an autobiographical detective story, as Sarah interviews various members of her extended family to discover something about her late mother's life. We learn that her mother used to be an actress and performer; a vivacious soul who married Michael (a British actor) after having experienced a disastrous first marriage. Her marriage to Michael works fine for the first few years, but then things start to go wrong, and her mother ends up having an affair with film producer Harry Gulkin (one of Polley's interviewees). Michael and the family are based in Toronto; Gulkin in Montreal. As Sarah investigates more about this love-affair, she discovers something shocking about her own life that changes her perspective for ever. As she conducts her interviews, Polley realizes that different interviewees have different versions of 'the truth,' shaped not only according to their perceptions, but also by what they want to reveal on camera. Only by comparing different interviews can Polley reach at least an approximation about what 'really' happened to her mother and Gulkin, and the effect of their love-affair on Michael. One reviewer of this film has already asked "what is it REALLY about?" The answer to this question becomes clear: there is no such thing as a 'real' or 'definitive' interpretation of the past. We can only listen to different accounts, and make up our own minds, while realizing that our interpretation is no more or less definitive than other interpretations. Polley's film is both uncompromising yet sympathetic to the interviewees; sometimes they are prompted into revealing truths about themselves (which perhaps they had not previously admitted), but Polley - who appears on screen as well as directing the entire film - makes no judgment on them. This absorbing piece is essential viewing for anyone interested in the relativity of history, whether personal or otherwise.