The Tracy Fragments (directed by Bruce McDonald, written by Maureen Medved) debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in 2007, collecting multiple awards. It’s making its way around the U.S. this summer, and for all who were put under Ellen Page’s spell in Juno, you’ll want to check this out.
The movie begins with 15 year-old Tracy Berkowitz (Page) naked, on a bus, looking for her brother (who she supposedly hypnotized into thinking he was a dog). Tracy has the same deadpan wit Page has become notorious for, but she also possesses a blatant intensity and anger that Juno did not. The boob-less trauma of being mistaken for a boy, her forced visits to a therapist (who is nonchalantly always dressed in drag), encounters with sketchy drug dealers and Tracy’s obsessive adoration for fantasy boyfriend somehow replicate the volatile emotions of adolescence perfectly, perhaps all the more accurately for the absurd situations Tracy finds herself in. The movie mostly plays out like a monologue by Page, punctuated by scenes with other characters to push the plot forward. It reverts back to Tracy on the bus, where she narrates the events as they unfold to the audience.
A visual experiment as well, the film makes use of head spinning split screens, which simultaneously show different angles of the same scene and at other times seemingly unrelated shots. This is not a movie with a clear-cut end, but the confusion it elicits in viewers is intentional and powerful. While it can get a little melodramatic at times, The Tracy Fragments is worth watching, and has some good music in it too. Broken Social Scene did the score, and the soundtrack boasts tracks by Duchess Says, Peaches, and a cover of Patti Smith’s “Horses” done by Elizabeth Powell of Land of Talk.
Posted by: Arielle
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