Female Film Critics 24/375
In Sarah Polley’s searing ensemble, there are indeed women talking but it is what they are talking about and who they are that grips us from the start. The subject these conservative Mennonite women gathered in a barn are talking about is whether to forgive the men. For what, we don’t know at first but it is gradually revealed as something most would find unforgivable.
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Writer/director Patricia Rozema had no idea in 1987 that her feature debut I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing would become a classic and ranked in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Top 10 Canadian Films of all time. Rozema simply made the film she wanted to make. The film’s success is even more impressive when one considers that 1987 was several years before the advent of the “New QueerCinema” and certainly well before conciseness about diverse screen roles for women.
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I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing is very sweet and very funny. Patricia Rozema, who wrote the screenplay and directed, pokes at the pretensions of the 1980s art establishment. A highlight: Gallery owner Gabrielle and a museum curator go through her gallery commenting in the most abstract language on the work of an up-and-coming painter—a skewering vision of people talking themselves into assigning values to a static image when an emotional response is called for.
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