Ho sentito le sirene cantare

The wonder of this film, like one of the paintings it features, can't be described in words. It is pure magic in the most abstract form! One can't help but adore Polly's originality (Sheila McCarthy). This is a fantastically crafted and acted film. It will trigger your imagination and place a smile on your face. After the film is over, you won't be able to stop dreaming. I can't watch it enough! It is very sad that it is no longer in print (at least last I checked) and I am very lucky to have purchased it in the Laser Disc format when I did. I have been a fan of this film since I was 20 and am still a fan 14 years

Sheila McCarthy shines in this exploration of the imagination, the artist and the self.

It is one of my top ten films of all time because of its originality and ,of course, McCarthy's offbeat and touching performance. She creates something truly original that has not been matched in a female comedic performance since.

Direction is crisp, unexpected and magical. One can see why it was given a standing ovation at Cannes.

It is one of the few films that can me on a pure emotional level..appealing to the misunderstood individual.

Anyone who has felt like they don't fit in will love this movie. Be sure to watch the closing credits to the end.

Now On DVD with Rozema's commentary.

Wow. There are four rather fine things in this, and one that ruins it all.

First the good. The key role is perfectly realized. Though the supporting actors and the way things are staged are mundane, this actress and the writer/directer created someone memorable. This was Napoleon Dynamite before he was cool.

While dialog and pacing are uneven, the music isn't. It is uniformly apt. The performance and the music alone are just about enough to sustain the thing until the end.

And there's one brilliant piece of stagecraft. Some paintings figure in the plot. These paintings have impressed our heroine who -- it is made explicit -- is our narrator. She describes them as miraculous and when they are shown, they are blank, white glowing rectangles. Until this point, the imaginary and real segments are clearly distinguished, and when we see this clever trick, we move forward on our chair, waiting for what is next.

And the final great thing is the way the thing is structured. In several ways, we are told that this is an artwork that is about artwork and the "message" is both in the story and how the story is told: there are matters of authorship and genuineness; a bit about filming and being filmed; other bits about reality and representations of reality. Hey, we see, this is one smart woman behind this. And we lean ever more forward in the chair, ready to leap.

And then the end hits us with such a banal notion that we are gobsmacked back. Hey! Is that all? All that energy and cleverness to tell us something Art Linkletter or Reader's Digest could (and does)? Jees.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Good things often come in surprisingly small packages, and this Canadian export is a very small thing indeed: a low budget sleeper describing the private world of Polly Vandersma, the 'organizationally impaired' Person Friday and part-time assistant for the curator of a high-brow Toronto art gallery. Painfully shy, prone to daydreams and distraction, socially inept and insecure, Polly is a simple person attracted to what she calls 'art things': obscure painting, modern architecture, the oblique language of intellectuals. It's a world she's not well equipped for (to say the least), and after developing an innocent crush on her curator boss she learns the hard way exactly how cold the world of 'art things' can be. Her story is both poignant and funny, built around the framing device of Polly's odd, confessional video diary, in which she recounts the one, glorious moment in her otherwise negligible life when she broke free of her shell. But the real secret behind the fragile charm of the movie is Sheila McCarthy's disarming star performance, capturing all of Polly's clumsy optimism and curiosity. Originally shown with 'Paradiso', a long (long) animated wet dream from the Age of Aquarius.

This is one of the two simple films about art that made deep impact on me even after all these years since their releases.

Patricia Rozema's "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing" deals with the subjectivity of art which is always relevant in any context. The master's childish art is readily being celebrated and consumed like fast food while the amateur's masterpiece is undiscovered but remain sacred. It reminds us to keep true art away from the corruption of consumerism.

Victor Erice's "The Quince Tree Sun" is probably the most boring film you'll ever watch, but just as the artist finds it impossible to capture the shifting sunlight, we realize it is no longer important to finish a piece of painting, if at all it is possible, as art is in the process not the result. We consciously experience the passing of time while watching the film! Brilliant.

Both films allow art to be taken to a different level, beyond the reaches of commercialism and physicality.