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“Feminist Review” of Su Friedrich’s Sink
or Swim
Review by Joanna Chlebu, May 2007
Su Friedrich's Sink or Swim is a beautifully complex film that quietly
sneaks up on the viewer, draws her in and, ultimately, leads her
to a place of intimate introspection and intense analysis. The film
follows Friedrich's development from "The Girl" to "The
Woman" through a series of anecdotes involving her father.
The viewer follows Friedrich's maturation as she celebrates birthdays,
mourns her parent's divorce and struggles to reconnect with her
father after he remarries.
Many of the film's anecdotes center on water, a force of nature
which is at once a source of great pleasure and pain for Friedrich.
It is from one such memory that the film gets its title: when Friedrich
tells her father she would like to learn to swim, he takes her to
the water, explains the methods of swimming and then throws her
into the deep end to Sink or Swim. The film is comprised of a series
of equally powerful and arresting interactions between father and
daughter, each of them important to Friedrich's development in its
own way.
The power of the film lies not in the recollection of the memories,
however, but in the way that Friedrich uses them to move beyond
the personal to the universal. Friedrich weaves narrative upon narrative,
using her past as a lens through which she may gaze critically at
everything from the construction of the Self, to social definitions
of femininity and womanhood, and the ideals of the American family.
Friedrich considers these issues with a tenderness and subtlety
which is at once astounding and breathtaking. Sink or Swim is simply
brilliant.
Su Friedrich's Sink or Swim is a beautifully complex film that
quietly sneaks up on the viewer, draws her in and, ultimately, leads
her to a place of intimate introspection and intense analysis. The
film follows Friedrich's development from "The Girl" to
"The Woman" through a series of anecdotes involving her
father. The viewer follows Friedrich's maturation as she celebrates
birthdays, mourns her parent's divorce and struggles to reconnect
with her father after he remarries.
Many of the film's anecdotes center on water, a force of nature
which is at once a source of great pleasure and pain for Friedrich.
It is from one such memory that the film gets its title: when Friedrich
tells her father she would like to learn to swim, he takes her to
the water, explains the methods of swimming and then throws her
into the deep end to Sink or Swim. The film is comprised of a series
of equally powerful and arresting interactions between father and
daughter, each of them important to Friedrich's development in its
own way.
The power of the film lies not in the recollection of the memories,
however, but in the way that Friedrich uses them to move beyond
the personal to the universal. Friedrich weaves narrative upon narrative,
using her past as a lens through which she may gaze critically at
everything from the construction of the Self, to social definitions
of femininity and womanhood, and the ideals of the American family.
Friedrich considers these issues with a tenderness and subtlety
which is at once astounding and breathtaking. Sink or Swim is simply
brilliant.
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