Photographic Memory

Documentary rumination on family and memory, with filmmaker Ross McElwee revisiting his youth in an attempt to understand his own son.

His son Adrian is about to hit 21 and their relationship seems to have reached its lowest ebb. Ross is anxious about Adrian’s recklessness (he undertakes extreme skiing stunts, sometimes stoned), distraction (he’s an aspiring graphic designer, filmmaker, tycoon) and presumably corrupt values. Adrian’s response: a suite of variations on the exasperated eyeroll. So Ross decides to revisit the seminal event of his own young manhood – a sojourn in Brittany – to see if he can imaginatively project his 21-year-old sensibility onto that of his son.

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