BLUE ROAD - THE EDNA O'BRIEN STORY is opening this year’s DOC NYC and it’s a joy.
The film is a look at the life and times of the noted author and teacher through her own words, her diaries and the lives of friends, family and the people she touched. It’s a film that reveals not only the story of her life but the story of the society that she came from and which she helped break apart.
I’m going to be honest, going into the film I had not expectations. I was seeing the film because it was playing DOC NYC. I will see pretty much any film at the festival regardless of what it is simply because the festival programs such great films. My attitude was this was going to be a by the numbers look at O’Brien’s life. Then the film started and I was hopelessly hooked.
That the film works so well is do to two things, the first is the fact that O’Brien and her sons are absolutely compelling subjects. Mixing current interviews with archival material the film lays out the tale so that we feel we are sitting with them having tea. We are not being lectured to but let in on a grand secret.
The other reason the film works is that director Sinead O'Shea puts the tale with in the context of society. Not only do we get the story of O’Brien’s life but we get the story of the society whose foundations he was shattering. Sure she was tel great stories but she was also holding a mirror up to society who didn’t like what it had become. The fact that this film is weaving O’Brien’s story into something larger is important when you consider that there are a couple of other films playing at DOC NYC that fail to do this. These other films tell their story in a vacuum and as such leave us with no context or reason as to why the story we are being told is important. Here we know why Edna O’Brien matters, and it’s not just because she is a hell of a person.
I loved this film. This was one of those films that when it was done I found myself sending missives off to friends who I thought would love the film.
See this movie.
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