Sooner or later, every filmmaker makes a documentary about their mother.
Joel does it in the most Joel way possible: a documentary about his mom that feels like a fake documentary about himself, which repeatedly flirts with becoming something else-something bigger, something more crafted-only to ultimately prove that nothing is more compelling than a filmmaker sincerely portraying a person they love.
Documentaries are always, in some way, an act of love. Always. And when a filmmaker tells the story of their mother, if they're honest about what they do and who she is-if they're truly sincere and skilled-then a grainy, desaturated, MiniDV close-up can become cinema.
And really, that's true for all of Haver's films. He's a filmmaker who, by stripping away everything-lights, sets, scripts-reveals the essence of authorship. And at his core, he's an artist who speaks about love.
Real love doesn't need embellishments. And he doesn't rely on gimmicks, or trendy "purity pledges" like Dogme 95. No. Haver removes the unnecessary so that, with his own means and sensibility, he can do what every great filmmaker should:
to speak about something they love.
In this instance: love.
