tomm-25 This film was made by artless people - artless writer(s), artless actors, artless cinematographer(s), artless sound, costumes, editor(s), and everything else and all other film folx who should know better.The only attraction was Sheila McCarthy's hair. I watched it to the end, ever hopeful that this piece if incompetent film-making would have some redeeming feature(s). NONE found. It's simply an amateurish PoS.I do not understand the positive reviews that others have given, nor the overall high score.Perhaps the offbeat, somewhat mystical/fanciful nature displayed from the outset held up for those who liked this film. It certainly did not for me.

KC This is one of the two simple films about art that made deep impact on me even after all these years since their releases.Patricia Rozema's "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing" deals with the subjectivity of art which is always relevant in any context. The master's childish art is readily being celebrated and consumed like fast food while the amateur's masterpiece is undiscovered but remain sacred. It reminds us to keep true art away from the corruption of consumerism.Victor Erice's "The Quince Tree Sun" is probably the most boring film you'll ever watch, but just as the artist finds it impossible to capture the shifting sunlight, we realize it is no longer important to finish a piece of painting, if at all it is possible, as art is in the process not the result. We consciously experience the passing of time while watching the film! Brilliant.Both films allow art to be taken to a different level, beyond the reaches of commercialism and physicality.

tedg Wow. There are four rather fine things in this, and one that ruins it all.First the good. The key role is perfectly realized. Though the supporting actors and the way things are staged are mundane, this actress and the writer/directer created someone memorable. This was Napoleon Dynamite before he was cool.While dialog and pacing are uneven, the music isn't. It is uniformly apt. The performance and the music alone are just about enough to sustain the thing until the end.And there's one brilliant piece of stagecraft. Some paintings figure in the plot. These paintings have impressed our heroine who -- it is made explicit -- is our narrator. She describes them as miraculous and when they are shown, they are blank, white glowing rectangles. Until this point, the imaginary and real segments are clearly distinguished, and when we see this clever trick, we move forward on our chair, waiting for what is next.And the final great thing is the way the thing is structured. In several ways, we are told that this is an artwork that is about artwork and the "message" is both in the story and how the story is told: there are matters of authorship and genuineness; a bit about filming and being filmed; other bits about reality and representations of reality. Hey, we see, this is one smart woman behind this. And we lean ever more forward in the chair, ready to leap.And then the end hits us with such a banal notion that we are gobsmacked back. Hey! Is that all? All that energy and cleverness to tell us something Art Linkletter or Reader's Digest could (and does)? Jees.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

gr15kg One of my top ten favorite films of all time, this is beautifully put together- I can't fault the film in any area, other than its not been released on DVD yet. This is easily the best film to come out of Canada, and Patricia Rozema will have a hard time bettering it. The whole movie plays like an ethereal dream with occasional lapses into consciousness. There are some very funny pieces, and some touching moments too. If you ever rent or buy a film because of a review on here, let it be this one, its totally brilliant, and one of the only films ever to be given a standing ovation by the critics in Cannes when it was first shown.Truly magical.