“You pray that this is your life without you. You don’t know who or what you’re praying to, but you pray. You don’t even regret the life that you’re not gonna have, because by then you’ll be dead. And the dead don’t feel anything. Not even regret.”
From her role as little Sara in The Road to Avonlea to writing and directing Away From Her, Canadian Sarah Polley’s drama accomplishments will stand the test of time. Two of my favorite movies she appears in from our collection are My Life Without Me and The Secret Life of Words.
In My Life without Me Sarah plays a woman named Ann who lives a modest life with her husband and two daughters and resides in a trailer in her mother’s garden. When she is diagnosed with uterine cancer and is told she has two months to live, she begins to write down all the things she wants to do before she dies and to prepare her family for a life without her without actually letting them know. Along the way she falls in love, meets a new neighbor, and proceeds to tape record messages for her daughters for after she is gone.
The Secret Life of Words takes us through the quiet and sorrowful life of Hanna. Most of the time, all Hanna hears is the silence without her hearing aid, which blocks out the noise of the factory where she works. She takes no holidays and no sick days, and the Union has noticed. Forced to take a holiday, Hanna packs a small bag and heads off to the coast. Once settled in town, as much as she can be, she goes to a restaurant and overhears an oil rig manager talk about a burned employee-having had nurse training Hanna volunteers to help. As Hanna helps Josef, he in turn helps her and the other few employees still on the rig…secrets are uncovered, stories are told, and lives are transformed.
~posted by Kara P.
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