The Book of Laughs
Intermingling memories, dreams and symbols relating to birth, death and time, ‘The Book of Laughs’, a nontraditional narrative, shows us sisters at three stages of life. The film glides back and forth through time, revealing the conflicts and the connections between the sisters as children, teenagers and young adults. With excerpts from her letters, the younger sister, who learns she is dying, unfolds the verbal narrative in voice-over technique.
The filmmaker, in working through her own feelings about the life/loss of her sister, gives the viewer a chance to reflect on the ways in which the existence of anger does not deny love.
The complexity of the sibling relationship and its importance in development have come increasingly to the fore in studies of individual (personal/psychological) development. This film provides a window into one such relationship as seen over time. It also illustrates much about relationships in general – the forces that draw together and wrench apart; events that bind and separate; love and cruelty; tenderness and fear; life and loss.
Description source: publicity materials
