Stories We Tell
Sarah Polley
She moved us with Away from Her and divided us with Take this Waltz, now actor turned director Sarah Polley brings her most remarkable film to German shores. Using documentary as her toolkit and pivoting her story on interviews with her family and the eloquent, heart wrenching narration of her nurturing dad Mike, Polley sets out to finally determine who her biological father is but instead finds something stranger. A devastating, beautiful film about fatherhood and memory, Stories We Tell picks apart the documentary rulebook before opening a window to that most endearing of bonds.
Tracks
John Curran
Mia Wasikowska gives a windswept, organic central
performance in this walkabout film that stays light on its feet while
sidestepping many of the pseudo spiritual pitfalls these types of self
discovery adaptations tend to take.
She plays Robyn Davidson. An Australian woman who in 1977
set out with her dog Digitty- and four Camels whom she had personally trained-
to walk from Alice Springs to the west coast,
a journey of roughly 1,700 miles. She tells us she’s sick of the pessimism of
her class, sex and generation. We also learn that she lost her mum. To fund her
trip she accepts a deal with the national geographic for a concluding article
on her journey and for a photographer (played by rising star Adam Driver) to
join her at certain points along the way. He seems to represent everything
she’s trying to escape and yet, the two form a bond.
Expressing such raw free spirited emotion on an
often populist and, let’s be honest, capitalist medium can prove awfully
tricky. Pretention seems to lurk at every corner and yet director John Curran looks
to have pulled it off. He keeps things grounded and natural while capturing all
of the skin tones, hues and shades which his native outback has to offer. Worth
the journey.
A Long Way Down
Pascal Chaumeil
Jesse, Jesse, Jesse… What happened bitch? A mere six months after the Breaking Bad curtain rapturously closed, co-star Aaron Paul finds himself in the cinematic wilderness. His latest subpar outing is a Nick Hornby adaptation (a wandering cinematic beast all its own) which finds four would-be suicides (autopilot Pierce Brosnon, misused Toni Collette, irritating Imogen Poots) on the roof of London’s fictional Toppers House on new year’s eve. The group form a pact to keep themselves intact till Valentine’s Day and worthless schmaltz ensues. Do us all a favour and jump.
