The Tracey Fragments (2007)

Director:

Bruce McDonald

Writers:

Maureen Medved (novel)
Maureen Medved (screenplay)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Something's missing...

Plot:

15-year-old Tracey Berkowitz is naked under a shower curtain at the back of a bus, looking for her little brother Sonny, who thinks he's a dog. |

Plot Keywords:

Split Screen | Female Nudity | Attempted Rape | Borderline Personality Disorder | Shower Curtain

Awards:

5 wins & 6 nominations

US Showtimes:

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Cast

Ellen Page	...	Tracey Berkowitz
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Libby Adams	...	Young Tracey Berkowitz
Shawn Ahmed	...	Satanic Cashier
Stephen Amell	...	Police Officer
Jackie Brown	...	Mrs. Dorchester
Ari Cohen	...	Mr. Berkowitz
Ryan Cooley	...	David
Daniel Fathers	...	Elegant Man
Maxwell McCabe-Lokos	...	Lance
Tara Nicodemo	...	Nurse
Julian Richings	...	Dr. Heker
Todd Sandomirsky	...	Glaring Man
Derek Scott	...	Headstand Johnny
Zie Souwand	...	Sonny - Tracey's brother
Kate Todd	...	Debbie Dodge
Slim Twig	...	Billy Zero
Norman Yeung	...	Tiger Daley

Runtime:

77 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:14A (British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | Australia:MA | Canada:13+ (Québec) | Portugal:M/16

Filming Locations:

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Shadow Shows

Trivia:

Filmed in just 14 days, but took 9 months to edit.

Quotes:

Tracey Berkowitz: When a horse falls, foam comes out of its mouth. When it falls, the legs of the horse thrash and the horse is no good... So somebody shoots it. The horse turns into glue. A machine puts the glue into bottles and children squeeze the bottles to get the glue out and stick bits of paper onto cards. Glue gets on the children's hands and the children eat the glue. And the children become the horse.

Exhausting but good

I just saw the world premiere of this film at the Berlin Film Festival and I was quite surprised. When I got the tickets I had no idea what it was actually about. When I was told it was about a 15-year old girl dealing with puberty I wasn't very happy about it. But then what I saw surprised me. During the first 2 minutes I prepared myself for two hours of overdone artistic cinema. But after some time, I got into it and even got attached to the girl who everybody just calls "Its". However, according to the director, this film may have been shot in only 14 days but, it took them about nine months to edit it. No wonder, since the director Bruce McDonald took the "Fragment"-part of the title by word. The film consists of hundreds of fragments of pictures, each showing different perspectives of the same moment mixing up reality and thoughts and fantasies of Tracy, the 15-year old protagonist. There are only rare scenes in which there are less then 3 fragments to be seen on screen. And the more emotional the protagonist gets, the more fragments appear. So, thus confusing you with just too much information it leaves you overwhelmed with impressions and emotions that are just too plenteous to handle. Off course, McDonald did this on purpose. It's all just a try to visualize what a teen must have to go through in puberty. After a while you get sucked into a world of bullies, disturbed parents, unanswered love, doubts and fantasies, sympathizing more and more with Tracy. Even though it was exhausting to pay attention all the time, I'd say the film is worth seeing (if you have the stamina). I have seen a lot of movies but this one was actually something new. Well, it may be exhausting but when you think of it, wasn't puberty too?!