Made for $218 on an iMac, Jonathan Caouette transforms home videos and stills, amateur short films and interviews into a personal diary film that holds true power.
Caouette tells the story of his mother Renee Leblanc through home footage edited in an experimental way. Leblanc was a beauty and was modeling by age 12. However, a fall from the garage left her paralyzed. A neighbor of her parents Rosemary and Adolph told them the paralysis was in the girl’s mind. So Renee’s parents took her to a psychiatrist who advised Renee’s parents to give her shock therapy, which she received two times a week for years. Renee recovered from the paralysis, but sunk into a variety of mental illnesses. She married young and her husband Steve left before Jonathan was even born.
The film portrays how the mental issues of a parent can hurt their children. Renee’s instability led to Jonathan being put into foster care at age 4 where he was abused. Later Jonathan went to live with his grandparents, who he portrays kindly in the film. Jonathan was a creative kid, whose early “confessional” performances are impressive.
If having a mentally unstable mother doesn’t create enough stress, Jonathan knew from an early age that he was gay — and living in Austin, Texas didn’t make this any easier. Then at around 13, while visiting his mother’s apartment, a drug dealer friend of hers gave Jonathan two joints, which he smoked back to back. He later found out they had been laced with PCP and soaked in formaldehyde. This was the beginning of Jonathan’s bouts with mental instability. He began feeling like he was outside his body watching his life unfold and began lashing out violently, which led his grandparents to institutionalize him on several occasions.
The film shows how these events shaped the person Jonathan has become and fears becoming. It’s sad to watch Renee progress from a beautiful young woman into a haggard paranoid child. What makes the film touching is that Caouette never gets too sentimental with the material. Equally impressive is the kind portrayal of his mother despite all the hardships. The film is touching and inspiring. It reminds us that all lives are a story worth telling.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
