Storytelling and Palindromes

Storytelling hit theaters in 2001 and is two different stories: one of Scooby, an angst filled, upper middle class, white teenage boy. The other is of Vi, a young female college student searching for the ultimate muse as a writer.

Both stories are dark and at times, comedic. Scooby is chosen by a fledgling documentary filmmaker to be the subject on a film about the struggles of suburban high school students. Throughout the part of the film with Scooby, we see him both through the film's lens and through the documentary's lens. Sidenote: Mike Shenk, from the documentary American Movie, plays a bit part as the camera guy for the documentarian. At the end of the film when Scooby sneaks to the premier of his documentary - the sign on the screening door reads "American Scooby." I've tried to find out if this is a comment on how director Chris Smith of American Movie has been charged with exploiting his film subjects - but so far no cigar.
The characters in the Scooby portion include his overbearing parents, favored older brother, and weasley little brother. There is also the maid who is treated so bad by the littlest brother that she eventually gets revenge.

The other story in the movie follows Vi and her struggles with a college creative writing class. Vi is dating a fellow classmate who has cerebral paulsy and neither of them get good responses from their writing teacher - an imposing black man and accomplished writer. Eventually Vi ends up meeting up with her teacher at a bar who takes advantage of the situation and gives Vi some real-life experience to write about.

I particularly like this move because it deals with both a writing class and the subject of exploitation by documentary filmmakers.
Here is the trailer:



Palindromes

From IMBD:
"A fable of innocence: thirteen-year-old Aviva Victor wants to be a 'mom'. She does all she can to make this happen, and comes very close to succeeding, but in the end her plan is thwarted by her sensible parents. So she runs away, still determined to get pregnant one way or another, but instead finds herself lost in another world, a less sensible one, perhaps, but one pregnant itself with all sorts of strange possibility. She takes a road trip from the suburbs of New Jersey, through Ohio to the plains of Kansas and back. Like so many trips, this one is round-trip, and it's hard to say in the end if she can ever be quite the same again, or if she can ever be anything but the same again."

The unique thing about this film is that Aviva actually appears as four different people.


The four girls - all Aviva - mirror the various ways that Aviva is seen by those around her and herself.



Here is a particularly funny clip (my favorite scene):


A palindrome is a word or pattern that instead of developing in different directions it folds in on itself so that the beginning and end mirror each other, that they are the same.
Todd Solondz