2001 A Family Odyssey Ophelia’s Version

Sarah Miles’ 2001 – A Family Odyssey Ophelia’s Version is a poetic experimental film exploring the hidden systemic powers of identification within a family constellation through four generations. Ancestors haunt the landscape like screen memories and family members collaborate to perform aspects of themselves. A collage of family album; the filmmaker’s father’s photographic archive; Hollywood narratives including Apocalypse Now, Badlands and Breakfast at Tiffany’s reflect a complex layering of narratives.
Miles plays Ophelia as a bunny girl in violet searching for information amidst a powerful dream like stream of drowned family stories, associations and screen Ophelia’s. Marianne Faithfull segues into Catherine Deneuve into Marilyn Monroe. Representing Ophelia evolves into an investigation of the limits of memory the nature of storytelling the boundaries of art and the imagination itself. Past present and future mix, generating new meanings. Through this process of constellation hidden forces are unveiled by Ophelia’s jaunt through familial image repertoire.