The Tracey Fragments

Tracey Berkowitz is a 15y.o. girl on a night bus, covered by a curtain shower, talking directly to you - nonsense. He memory is fragmented, chaotic, fancy, and on a loop. She has left home, is looking for her missing little brother Sonny and is in trouble.

We are drawn into Tracey's chaotic mind and soul, but also towards her path of growth from child to woman, from fairy-tale worlds to harsh reality and acceptance of the self. This is a very interesting story about a teenager that is not pretty, cleaver or happy. Although this is a movie about teenagers, there is nothing sweet about it, as presents very hard topics: rape, bullying, loneliness, lack of self-esteem, confused self-image, delusional thoughts, insecurity, and mental trouble.

Tracey's memory fragments and thoughts appear in mini-screens within the screen and on split-screen images, which show different angles of the same scene or different scenes altogether. The non-linear narrative is very challenging. Pay extra attention to the first 15-20 minutes of the film, because they are the most difficult and the ones that really give clues to understand many of the things that happen later on.

The film is more complex, visually, at the beginning, when Tracey's mind and emotions are more confused, and becomes simpler and more linear at the same pace that Tracey's mind clears, to be completely linear at the end, when she accepts herself and the events related to Sonny. In other words, Tracey's troubled mind and emotions are directly linked to the way the movie is visually organized. The movie is also full of symbolic psychoanalytical elements, from the gender of Tracey's psychiatrist and the settings in which the consultation happens, to the appearance of different animals (a crow, a horse, and "a dog"), to the way the scenes have been patched and shown to the viewer.

Ellen Page is fantastic, despite the dramatic demands of her character. She was 20 when the film was shot, but she is believable as a 15y.o. girl. That's not only her physique, is the great actress she is. The rest of the cast are OK in their respective roles: Ari Cohen and Erin McMurtry as Mr & Mrs Berkowitz; Zie Souwand as sweet Sonny; Toronto Songwriter and performer Slim Twigg as jerk Billy Zero, Julain Richings as Dr Heker, among others.

A few important flaws ruined what could have been a great movie. The main idea is brilliant but, since we get mostly Tracey's subjective approach to reality, the rest of the characters are somewhat pointless and can't be trusted by the viewer; in fact they are just hinted. I did not like the end, not the way it ended, but how the end was presented and how we get there - what triggers Tracey's epiphany? That is so because the mood of the movie and, most importantly, its tempo were not the right ones.

This is one of those movies that are a challenge for the viewers, that need of their full awareness and attention, that have a difficult knot to untie, but also one of those movies that can be interpreted in different ways and make your brain produce sparks. One of those movies that you get or you don't, nothing in between. To me, one of those movies that, the more I think about it, the more I want to watch again.

Are you ready for it?

The Tracey Fragments is a wonderful movie which everyone should all see for the experience. Most of the movie is split between three or more different camera angles. This allows the viewer to watch the movie in many different perspectives. Where this can be confusing at times, I found it wonderful and unique! I had such a blast watching this movie and trying to see every frame at least once.

The beginning of the movie will leave your head spinning for a good 20-30 minutes. Picture an empty time-line and as the movie progresses, you get to know a little from the beginning, a little from the end, a little of the middle, and repeat it until the movie finishes. It's bizarre but an experience.

One great portion of the film are the little scenes when you get dumped into Tracey's fantasy world. Sometimes you can tell it's a fantasy and sometimes you cannot. However, this then leads the viewer to wonder if future scenes are real or just a fantasy.

The highlight of the film, in my opinion, is Tracey's 'back of the bus' confessions. Throughout the movie, Tracey will pop in the movie, dressed in a shower curtain, and give a little hint or just some insight into her somewhat confused mind. It gives you a short break from the non-linear chaos of the film and sometimes will give you a chuckle.

All in all, Ellen Page yet again shows how great of an actor she really is. Her acting in this movie blows Hard Candy and Juno out of the water! The movie is all about her and I don't believe that there isn't a scene without her. I find this great because you can truly focus on the main character and her story, rather than any subplots or supporting character development. The Tracey Fragments is a must see film!!

Tracey Fragments is a very experimental film. 95% of the film is shot with two or more screens. Sometimes it's even split up as much as 100 screens! Not often do you see a film where there is more art in the editing than anything else in the film. In fact, some of the split screens act as shattered glass which seemed to be the symbolic meaning of the film where a girl's life is pretty much shattered throughout the film.

Tracey Berkowitz (played by Ellen page) is a fifteen year old girl who thought it would be funny to hypnotize her brother into being a dog. She hates her parents and her school mates. She dreams of starting a rock band with the boy of her dreams, Billy Zero. Very independent, she decides to run away from home to look for her brother. there she has her day from hell.

The first thing I'd like to comment about the film is I thought the script lacked. Ellen Page made this movie watchable but I disliked some of the scenes. In fact, some parts were so ridiculous it almost made me laugh nervously as if they were trying to make the movie corny at times. With that said, I'd have to say that Bruce McDonald did a very good job capturing Tracey with the budget that he had. It's obvious that the film was shot with a hand-held camera but it fit very well with the dark behavior and life that Tracey endured throughout the movie. I also loved the score. I read on one of the message boards for this movie that some replied that they loved and hated this movie. I agree. Some parts were so beautifully captured while some seems completely lacked and didn't fit (once again, the lacking script). The movie is exhausting at times but the last thirty minutes began to pick up again and make the movie interesting.

Ellen Page is a versatile actress and I like her a lot more when she plays darker roles such as this movie and her best performance to date, Hard Candy. I did love Juno but I like these type of roles more. The most memorial seen in the movie is when she stares her mom down and points her finger in her face while screaming at her. It's almost freaky but so well done.

If you love Ellen Page, this movie and Mouth to Mouth need to be seen with an open mind. 77 minutes of this film could feel like two hours.

My verdict 6.25/10

If it's true, as Marshall McLuhan has suggested, that the medium is indeed the message, then "The Tracey Fragments" proves that theory in spades. This highly idiosyncratic work has as its focal point "Tracey Berkowitz - 15 - just another girl who hates herself" - a description that comes straight from the mouth of Ms. Berkowitz herself. Tracey is a deeply unhappy youngster who hates her (admittedly horrible) parents, is terrorized by all the "cool" kids in school for insufficient mammary-gland development, spends most of her nights riding the subway, hooks up with a psychotic lowlife who turns out to be a drug dealer, and searches for her little brother whom she's hypnotized into thinking he's a dog and who goes missing by a frozen river when she's supposed to be watching out for him. To help mitigate her misery, Tracey also dreams of having a relationship with a brooding "emo" bad boy at school and fantasizes that she is a famous, universally worshipped rock star.

But it is not Tracey's story that is of primary interest here; rather it's the cut-and-paste film-making style director Bruce McDonald has employed to create a sense of fragmentation and dislocation in the viewer - intended, obviously, to mirror the highly chaotic and disordered nature of Tracey's world and life. With rare exceptions, the screen is occupied by as few as two and as many as a dozen shots at a time, often portraying the same sequence from slightly different angles or at slightly different moments in time, or portraying thematically related scenes simultaneously. The question inevitably arises, is the approach effective in what it's trying to accomplish or does it serve as a distancing device for those of us who are trying to enter into Tracey's mind and world. I imagine that different viewers will come to varying verdicts on that point.

Personally, I appreciate what McDonald is trying to do here more than I admire it. "The Tracey Fragments," which Maureen Medved has adapted from her own novel, offers many probing insights into the subject of teenage angst, particularly as regards the tremendous pressure modern young people are put under to "measure up" and conform to some arbitrarily agreed-upon social standard. And "Juno"'s Ellen Page gives a stunning performance as the young woman caught in an ever-tightening web of self-hatred (this is, in many ways, the darker side of "Juno," and Page is much less mannered in this role).

But, frankly, the movie probably would have been more moving and involving without all the migraine-inducing imagery which succeeds mainly in throwing us out of the story. In fact, there is only one scene in which the split screen technique actually serves a narrative purpose - and that is when Tracey is hiding behind a curtain while her drug-dealer friend is being savagely beaten by the irate boss to whom he owes money. Most of the rest of the time, the approach feels more like a gimmick designed to separate this film from the rest of the "distressed-teen indie" pack than an artistically viable choice in its own right.

Still, if you can get past all the artiness and visual distraction, you might just find in "The Tracey Fragments" a thoughtful, sensitive and ineffably sad glimpse into a young woman's heart.

I saw this movie at the Berlin Film Festival and did not know nothing about it before. There will be people that will call this a "masterpiece" or "pure art", and there will be a lot more people that will call this "bullshit". I wouldn't argue with neither of them. If you want to enjoy this movie, you will have to buy every idea the director came up with, otherwise you will want to leave the cinema. At every moment of the movie, the picture is split up into lots of little pictures, often showing the same scene from different camera angles. This can be exhausting at times, but it can also be very exciting.

You suddenly realize that you as a member of the audience are part of the film-making process. You are the one to edit to movie, to decide whether you want the see the long or the close shot. I found this a very interesting approach to the process of making a movie. But still, sometimes the film seems to be so random, trying hard to be special and smart. You might have to watch it a second time to really check if there's is a kind of inner logic to every scene. The movie has great moments and is full of original ideas, though sometimes it is only original for the purpose of being original and nothing else. Apart from the interesting picture language, I have to mention the gorgeous Ellen Page, who is - ultimately - THE most talented young actress there is today. I'm looking forward to her future projects.