Directed by Patricia Rozema
Scatterbrained Polly gets a job as a secretary in Gabrielle's art gallery. Polly aspires to be a professional photographer, and idolizes Gabrielle for her artistic ability. When Gabrielle rekindles an old romantic relationship with the younger painter Mary, Polly becomes jealous, and discovers Gabrielle isn’t exactly who she claims to be.
Ho sentito le sirene cantare, Der Gesang der Meerjungfrauen, Hørte du havfruene synge?, 인어가 노래하는 소리를 들었네, 去听美人鱼唱歌, Sjöjungfruns sång, 去聽美人魚唱歌
France Cannes Film Festival 
Canada Toronto International Film Festival 
USAR FranceU USAR USAR Canada France USA 
Polly sees the world through video cameras and stark black and white photography, sometimes grainy, sometimes beauty in sharp relief. She does drudge work to earn enough to live, and she accepts insults dressed as compliments. She falls in love with a woman who represents what she thinks she wants, and she exists awkwardly, like a nose bleed, in that woman's life when she isn't working for her. She is naive, and she believes in the beauty of others. She isn't exclusive.
Gabrielle is just self-aware enough to know that she sounds pompous while drunk. She is bitter, broken, and terrified that she has no talent. She believes herself above Polly, but she yearns for the freedoms Polly has. She…
and those mermaids.... were the cocteau twins
Stories about women in their late 20s - early 30s who are awkward, weird and don’t have their life together usually can range from annoying to rage-inducing for me. I think it’s partially because I fear seeing my insecurities on display and partially because it’s always portrayed as Cute and Quirky to be messy and not care about yourself or the people around you. This is not one of those stories.
Polly isn’t quirky in cute ways. When people are mean to her she twists that into a compliment in her head and accepts the harm. She’s never thought about work as a necessity. She doesn’t think about how her actions could harm someone. She’s naive and not in the…
extremely charming saturday afternoon comfort food, the kind that would be easy to watch over and over and pretend you live in the sets and wear all the clothes
What do you want from life Polly?
- A fork
A[r/u]tistic indie comedy is a hit or miss (Miranda July? Fantastic two times obnoxious once. Lena Dunham? Cannot stomach) and yet Polly is so pinpointed relatable any cheap-out 80s craft and secondhand embarrassment is all but forgiven. The decade of video store and camcorder queer cinema is so deliciously diy and emotionally open I hesitate to believe that big budget romantic comedies and background queers in a superhero movie could ever do as much in bringing real queers to life onscreen. As someone who memorized The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock in high school, movies make me smile!
What a magical little film for the soft-hearted daydreamers of the world who get lost in their own little fantasies, who fill their homes with photos and plants and opera music, who go unnoticed for the most part because they're awkward and don't fit in, but who have so much to offer. At times, I just found myself crying for no reason as I watched this film. I guess the reason is that this film exists at all and that it gives us Polly. I saw so much of myself in her. I'm so grateful for this special film.
I'm clearly low on inspiration when all I wanted to write about this movie, this movie that made my heart swell and break, that made me laugh and made me feel less alone, was "This film is just lovely." I mean, it is. Watching this film feels just like making yourself something to eat (a can of peas, perhaps?) and sitting down alone with your thoughts.
I've Heard the Mermaids Singing functions as a critique of the culture of the art world, with all its pretentiousness and its cruel ambition, a mask here for a yearning to be able to create. The other side of that coin is art for one's own sake, not for glory or recognition, but for the pleasure gained from curating life through the lens of the things that we find beautiful.
i think we ALL have a crush on our boss who is gay, french, looks like anne bancroft, and is afraid of being talentless
“I don’t want to die with my body” line made me cry
i don’t even know if this is really a 4.5 but all my ratings are bullshit anyway so who cares but something about this even if it’s not all there or it feels a little incomplete at times, almost like a person in a lot of ways, just really resonated with me, it’s just there’s a joy in the awkward loneliness that encapsulates the film and it’s really just something special and polly, i definitely found myself relating to polly in a lot of ways, her quirks, her social awkwardness and ineptness, the patronising remarks from the people she loves and admires that don’t quite register, it’s all very familiar isn’t it and don’t we all just love the familiar.
I really love strange and dreamy films. The main character is 31 and has no ambitions and is perfectly happy. I love that as well.
"I'm pretty much a gal on the go."
Women Film Editors #308: Patricia Rozema
Yesterday, one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Nicole Atkins, shared some quotes from another musician and photographer, Michael Leviton, on Instagram, that I thought contained some useful reflections on how and why people create art. So I'm going to reprint them in full:
If you think you're a bad artist, prove it. Write a thousand bad songs or two hundred bad stories or fifteen-hundred bad drawings. I bet you $100 you can't. There's gonna be some good stuff in there.
Pursue pleasure, however you define it. Make what will be most fun. There are many kinds of fun...sometimes crying is a type of fun. There can be…
