2012
Not Rated
First Run Features
1 h 27 m

2012
Not Rated
First Run Features
1 h 27 m

Summary Filmmaker Ross McElwee finds himself in frequent conflict with his son, a young adult who seems addicted to and distracted by the virtual worlds of the internet. To understand his fractured love for his son, McElwee travels back to St. Quay-Portrieux in Brittany for the first time in decades to retrace his own journey into adulthood. A...

Documentary

Directed By: Ross McElwee

Written By: Marie-Emmanuelle Hartness, Ross McElwee

2012
Not Rated
First Run Features
1 h 27 m

2012
Not Rated
First Run Features
1 h 27 m

Photographic Memory

Name: Photographic Memory
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2012-10-12
Duration: 1 min 27 s
Rating: 79
Cast: Adrian McElwee, Ross McElwee

Metascore Generally Favorable Based on 9 Critic Reviews

User Score Available after 4 ratings

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Documentary

Directed By: Ross McElwee

Written By: Marie-Emmanuelle Hartness, Ross McElwee

Top Cast

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Adrian McElwee

Self

Ross McElwee

Self

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Critic Reviews

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Metascore

Generally Favorable Based on 9 Critic Reviews

89% Positive
8 Reviews

11% Mixed
1 Review

0% Negative
0 Reviews

All Reviews
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Mixed Reviews
Negative Reviews

Critic Reviews

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Metascore

Generally Favorable Based on 9 Critic Reviews

89% Positive
8 Reviews

11% Mixed
1 Review

0% Negative
0 Reviews

All Reviews
Positive Reviews
Mixed Reviews
Negative Reviews

100

Christian Science Monitor

Oct 12, 2012

Photographic Memory is about the permanence and impermanence of what we choose to preserve: on film and in our heads (which is often the same thing). I would like to think that one day Adrian might look at this documentary and see it as a supreme act of paternal love.

By Peter Rainer FULL REVIEW

The A.V. Club

Oct 10, 2012

Photographic Memory is less wry and more melancholy than McElwee's earlier documentaries; it's a lot like his superb 2003 film "Bright Leaves," which was also concerned with family history and the shifting meaning of images.

By Noel Murray FULL REVIEW

Slant Magazine

Oct 8, 2012

Ross McElwee is less anxious of death itself than of finally comprehending the vast faultiness of the life he's lived.

By Joseph Jon Lanthier FULL REVIEW

Village Voice

Oct 9, 2012

Alternating between time periods and geographic locations, all of it connected by McElwee's narrated thoughts, the film proves a bracing and sometimes uncomfortable peek into private fears and regrets about mortality and missed opportunities. It's also, in its portrait of wayward Adrian, further proof that there's nothing more difficult, frustrating, messy, and insufferable than teenagerdom.

By Nick Schager FULL REVIEW

Time Out

Oct 9, 2012

McElwee's quietly reassuring voice dominates the film, but that doesn't mean he can't craft a magnificently eloquent image when he wants to, as in the moment when he frames Adrian, seated in a coffee shop, inside his own reflection in the shop's front window.

FULL REVIEW

NPR

Oct 11, 2012

For all its obsession with the past, Photographic Memory ends in a simple, genuinely moving interaction between father and son that illustrates McElwee's discovery that memories are nice, but can't be touched and embraced as we can the present.

By Ian Buckwalter FULL REVIEW

The New York Times

Oct 12, 2012

The connections made in Photographic Memory are more tentative than those found in Mr. McElwee's earlier films, which also seek answers in roundabout ways while maintaining an acute eye for light, color, space and atmosphere.

By Stephen Holden FULL REVIEW

See All 9 Critic Reviews

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Details

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Production Company St. Quay Films, French Connection Films, ARTE

Release Date Oct 12, 2012

Duration 1 h 27 m

Rating Not Rated

Genres

Documentary

Website http://www.photographicmemorythemovie.com/

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Awards

Sheffield International Documentary Festival

• 1 Win & 1 Nomination

Venice Film Festival

• 1 Nomination

Photographic Memory

Top Cast

Adrian McElwee

Self

Ross McElwee

Self

Critic Reviews

Critic Reviews

Critic Reviews

Critic Reviews

User Reviews

User Reviews

Details

Details

Awards

Awards

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