Film screened: Stories We Tell (2012)
Time: 2:00 PM
Venue: Room No. 105, 1st Floor, Central Block
Attended by: Students of1MENG and 2MENG

Synopsis:
In Stories We Tell, Canadian director Sarah Polley plays with the documentary format to explore the nature of memory and storytelling, crafting a thoughtful, compelling narrative that unfolds like a mystery. She playfully interviews and interrogates a cast of characters of varying reliability; as each relates their version of the family mythology, present-day recollections shift into nostalgia-tinged glimpses of their mother, who departed too soon, leaving a trail of unanswered questions. 

 Key discussion points:

• Novelty of artfully interspersing archival home-video footages and reconstructed ones, effecting a rerouting of the genre of Personal Documentary.
• Bold attempt by director to film probing of her private life, a life-changing incident where family secrets are laid bare, proving that truth is sometimes dramatic than fiction.
• Led to questions about i) self-reflexive style of this documentary, ii) subjective nature of truth, iii) approximation of truth in retelling history iv) eulogizing the dead, v) unfathomable layers of a woman’s psyche and vi) scope of the art of storytelling.
• Citations from Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and Pablo Neruda’s ‘Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines’ were fitting in the evocative on-camera narration.
• Though the audience resented obviousness of the mystery, the intimacy of autobiographical narrative involving kinship, memories, fidelity, family history, quest for identity etc., when coupled with a well-structured cinematic form charmed all alike.
• Allusions to Andre Bazin (cinema to immortalize the likeness of the dead) and AvijithMukul Kishore (Indian documentary filmmaker) etc., were made.