Kate Bradford
There is no dark without light, no love without hate, and no life without loss. There is no human being alive who has not experienced loss, and if they haven’t they surely have not truly lived. Loss can cripple us, it can motivate us, and it most definitely defines us.
In ABSENCES, Canadian filmmaker Carole Laganière examines the stories of three people, all of who are both coping with the loss of family members, and who are searching for resolution. Simultaneously, Laganière shows us snippets of her own state of loss, and that of her mother. While still physically alive, Laganière’s mother is quickly succumbing to Alzheimer’s Disease. She will soon forget her life, forget her family, and forget herself.
Deni is an American novelist who grew up knowing his father had a family he never spoke of. His father’s Quebecois roots remained a mystery until an admission on his death bed. Armed with the information his father provided before his death, Deni travels back to his fathers homeland to discover the part of his family he never knew. Struggling to reconcile the joy of the reconnection with the feelings of betrayal for being denied his own heritage for so many years, Deni turns his father’s story into his next novel.
Nathalie’s face is so bright, it’s difficult to see the pain that she holds deep within her. 4 years earlier, her little sister Marilyn disappeared without a trace. Struggling with mental illness, Nathalie fears that her sister is homeless, being trafficked, or dead. She travels the streets of Toronto passing out her sisters picture, checking shelters, and even venturing into strip clubs (where she is often not welcome) in hopes that someday they will cross paths again.
Ines may on the surface look to be a Canadian vacationing in the beautiful coastal down of Dubrovnik. In reality, she is returning home. When she was a child, her family was displaced by the civil war that ravaged her homeland. If that wasn’t enough, her mother abandoned her family one day, took up with a young soldier, and never returned. Ines, her brother, and her father eventually emigrated to Canada, but Ines never stopped wondering where her mother was (and how she could have left them).
These stories are sewn together with scenes from the filmmakers own family. Conversations with her mother, her confusion, her loneliness, Laganière’s fear of being forgotten: these are sentiments that I, and I’m sure many other people, unfortunately can relate to. Dementia creates a strange kind of involuntary emotional estrangement, not only from ones loved ones but also from ones self. It’s interesting to see it juxtaposed against actual physical alienations and losses.
The film is a pensive and reserved examination of the human condition, and yet still leaves the viewer slightly unsatisfied. Each one of these stories is intriguing and interesting enough to warrant an entire film’s worth of storytelling. Instead, in an attempt to bring about a greater thesis that is difficult to glean at times, these stories sometimes become watered down and stunted. Nathalie’s story, in particular, is not given the attention nor the exposition it so badly needs. This distance is almost too much, even for the very detached style the film employs.
Even so, it’s impossible not to be drawn in by these people, their stories, and the imagery created by Laganière’s talented cinematic eye.
ABSENCES plays Hot Docs 2014 on tonight, April 25th – 6pm at The Lightbox. It plays Lightbox again on Saturday, April 26th – 1pm, and finally on Saturday May 3rd – 9pm at Scotiabank Theatre.
For more from Kate Bradford, visit her site: www.katehasablog.com