Like most of McElwee’s films, this one bucks all narrative convention, following his stream of consciousness as inspiration strikes. But just over an hour in, we’re warned through text on screen that the next images are from the final year of Adrian’s life. It acts almost as a trigger warning of the pain to come and it shifts the film’s perspective, pulling in footage that Adrian himself shot over the years, including some from his final weeks on earth.
The real brilliance of the film is in the edit, which McElwee spearheads alongside Joe Bini. They’re not just weaving together footage from a few years. McElwee has dug up a lifetime of tape, from consequential moments like weddings and family trips to trivial shots of the scenes outside his window. These aren’t just flashbacks, they’re attempts to bring new meaning to moments spent alongside his son. He’s examining how his relationship to those memories have changed with age. He’s transported by some, heartbroken by others. And it’s all woven together like an elaborate tapestry that effectively surprises, inspires, challenges and disheartens the audience at every turn. His trademark narration soars over the top of the images, working to help the audience make sense of them all. What struck me most was the soul inside of so much of the footage. The earliest videos of his son are textured and warm, shot on film. But in Adrian’s final days, McElwee captures his son using a handheld digital camera. That warmth has faded, leaving us with a sterile portrait of a man struggling to hold on. You can feel McElwee’s tension, sorrow and shame despite being behind the camera.
Ross McElwee records narration at his desk in a scene from Remake.
“This isn’t a film that you simply watch, it’s one that completely engulfs you.”
This isn’t a film that you simply watch, it’s one that completely engulfs you in the rich, complex life of another person, transporting you into their happiest and most painful recollections. It’s not a film you move on from when you leave the theater. It’s one that alters the way you see the world, drilling deep into your consciousness. I found myself dreaming in McElwee’s signature cinéma vérité style the night after I finished watching, seeing my own life through the lens of a camera.
This film is a lifetime in the making. It’s not a project that took a few years or even a decade, it took every experience McElwee ever had. He said that after Adrian died, he wasn’t sure he’d ever make another film. And in many ways, he hasn’t. Remake isn’t as much a film as it is a eulogy that took a decade to write. It’s a tribute crafted the only way McElwee knows how–through deeply vulnerable, intimate, visual storytelling that pulls the audience through his cycle of grief right alongside him. This is not only his goodbye to Adrian, it’s his way of immortalizing him. While his life was cut short, his memory is now preserved forever.
"…Remake isn’t as much a film as it is a eulogy that took a decade to write"
