Sink or Swim

I was very moved by Su Friedrich’s Sink or Swim. The story of the young girl desperately trying to gain her father’s love was very sad, yet Friedrich seems to have grown up to be a strong and confident woman. Some people don’t have the best childhood or relationship with their parents and they feel pain and anger because of this. The best they can do is to learn to forgive their parents and learn from their experiences. I feel Friedrich made the film partly as a way of releasing the anger and pain that she has experienced. The ending where she realizes that she doesn’t need to swim across the lake was the most poignant and showed that she had really moved on from the constant pain in her life. In the article she mentions how she feels ambivalence towards her father, so I feel that this film does accomplish creating closure in feeling this pain and anger towards him.

Also, I really loved the technical aspects of the film. The visuals during each story went perfectly along with the voiceover. I agree with others that this film is very reminiscent of a novel or a memoir. Sometimes I can’t recall if what I picture in my mind was what really what happened on screen, because of the influence of the voiceover. The cinematography, home movies, and type writer scenes, create a nostalgic quality that reminds me of childhood.