PHYLLIS AND HAROLD
A film by Cindy Kleine
2008, 85 minutes
2008, 85 minutes
No. 298
Documentary
Documentary
Description
Phyllis and Harold is an astoundingly frank journey through a disastrous 59-year marriage. Drawing on a lifetime of her family’s home movies and interviews made over 12 years, filmmaker Cindy Kliene mixes reportage, cinema verité and animation to uncover family secrets and tell a story that could not be shown publicly as long as her father was still alive.Phyllis and Harold delve into the mystery of time passing, the nature of living a life, and the challenges of losing those we love. But it is also a loving, funny exposé on the sins of suburbia. Imagine Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage seen through the prism of I Love Lucy.
Reviews
"Sixty-two Films That Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking: Cindy Kleine looks behind the façade of suburban respectability to extract the pathos from her parents’ sixty-year marriage...The pressure of real-time secrecy gives this documentary the tension of a thriller." - Richard Brody, The New Yorker
"Phyllis and Harold has extraordinary breadth and depth and has been made with wit, compassion and imagination, and it reflects the complexity of life itself."- Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
