One of the first things to strike me about the film was how the interviews appeared to overlap

and how myself, as the audience, got the impression that the people who were being
interviewed were all together, feeding off each others version of the story. In reality this was
not the case, however it was an interesting technique used to meld the story as a whole
together. I think this ties into what Johnty mentioned, in that there was a dichotomy between
the facts of reality and the imagined version of the story. This notion was particularly
enhanced by the merging of the interviews on particular parts of the story and the way each
person revealed their own version to the camera. This all comes back to our own individual
notion of the truth and how we perceive certain events and re-tell these events as stories.
I think Heidi makes a great point in pointing out that the director, Sarah Polley is actually an
actress, as this played a part in my first impression of the film. Having seen Polley in films
prior to viewing Stories We Tell, I at first thought that the film was a fictional film set up as a
documentary for artistic purposes to aid the authenticity of the the story telling. It's
interesting to see how my previous knowledge of her impacted my first viewing of the film. I
felt like a tennis ball being manipulated throughout the film, trying to guess what was real
and not fictional. This ties into our earlier observations of the notion of the truth and the role
it plays when we tell stories.

I really like the way you explained social media as a modern outlet to tell our own stories,
Johnty. In a way, the documentary was Sarah's outlet to telling her own story in more
elaborate way. Whilst we note the many facets to the story and who is actually telling it and
who it is actually about, I think Sarah being the director of the film is ultimately the centre of
the film, not Dianne as Heidi mentioned earlier.Though whilst I think Sarah is the focus of
the story, Stories We Tell is more revealing of its storytellers than the actual story itself.
After several more viewings of the film this was particularly clear to me, especially in the
way Michael and Harry were presented in the film. It is clear that despite all the trials of the
story, Sarah is still very close with the father that raised her, Michael. Her decision to allow
Michael to read from his own book with his own version of events gave us not only a sense
that the documentary was genuine and not based on fiction, but was very telling of Michaels
character. In contrast some viewers may have seen this technique of the story being told from
Michaels book to give the scene a fictional quality. In viewing the scene of Michael reading
from his book separately, it appeared very honest, however when I contrasted it with scenes
of Sarahs biological father, Harry, telling his own story, Michaels telling seemed to lack the
sincere emotion involved with the story. Michael came off as very detached and clinical in
comparison to Harry which is very revealing as Michael having a longer, on going
relationship with Sarah seemed indifferent to the story that had played an important role in
his daughters life. Whilst I note that Harry came off as very angry about the events
surrounding how Sarah came to be, I think his storytelling was the most truthful and heartfelt.
During the film, Harry makes the point to mention that he thinks this is his and Sarahs story
and that he doesnt agree with the telling of events from other family members and friends.
To an extent I have to agree with him as I found his storytelling to capture me in its hold far
beyond any other story teller in the documentary. For artistic purposes, the aid of a
collaboration of storytellers telling the same story made the documentary what it is, but at its
core, I think that this was Harry and Sarahs story to tell.