One of the aspects I found the most intriguing about Sarah Polley’s ‘Stories We Tell’ was the exigency of all those who came in contact with the story – the desire to ‘own’ the story. This is seen not only in Sarah, responsible for the documentary which saw her family’s secrets revealed to the public. Sarah’s father Michael (not biological) responded to the the news that Harry Gulkin fathered Sarah during his marriage to Diane prompted him to write. Sarah relates how Michael set to putting down the story of his marriage Diane, her affair, his relationship with his children and what he saw as the necessity for the children to tell their own story – their role in their mother’s life, her role in their lives and the manner in which she affected them. Harry Gulkin also sought to tell the story. For me, I was interested in the variety of reasons individual’s gave for why they wanted to tell the story – for catharsis, to preserve memories, to make sense of and move forward from a moment in life.

‘Stories We Tell’ took more than 5 years to be produced – with Polley having to take a break during production to focus her attention and energies elsewhere. For me, this was reminiscence of Art Speigelman’s two part text ‘Maus’ which saw the first installment published in 1987 and the second installment 4 years later in 1991. While both Polley and Spiegelman were in possession of the majority of the content, it became a question of how one might go about relating another’s history – especially in regards to morals and ethics. The final product, in both cases, reveals that while the focus of the work is one specific individual, it is impossible to consider them without considering others – particularly those separated by a generation. In the characters of both Polly and Spiegelman it is apparent that their history is experiences that preceded their births but were transmitted to them leaving them with absent experiences – memories of that which they had not and would to experience.