Anyone who has lost a loved one knows that in the weeks and months that follow, after the most intense spasms of grief have subsided, that the question of how exactly to remember that person remains. It’s a tremendous question that has no universal answer, that everybody and every family must find for themselves. And it’s this question that sits at the heart of “306 Hollywood,” an experimental documentary that attempts to both craft a vivid portrait of a grandmother through the treasure trove that was her house and to reconcile with what it means to lose someone you love. And despite its tendency to lean upon self-serious reimaginings, it is nonetheless an engaging and tenderly drawn film that is likely to resonate with anyone who has had to do the tireless work of sorting through an estate of a family member.
Written, directed by and about the experiences of siblings Elan and Jonathan Bogarín, “306 Hollywood” has a simple conceit: Their grandmother, Annette Ontell, has died and they are going to turn her house into an archaeological dig. Their goal is to treat their grandmother like someone important, like a woman worth remembering, and use the remnants of her life — and her decades worth of possessions — to craft a portrait of her. The idea, of course, is that everyone is important and worth remembering, that despite the fact that there are big lives and small lives — those that impact the course of history and those that didn’t — that everyone was loved by someone and love makes people valuable.
To do this, Elan and Jonathan literally turn Annette’s home into a sort of archaeological dig — or better yet, a chaotic museum to be organized and cataloged. The pair pulls the house off the market days before it is set to sell in order to preserve Annette’s spirit and to not rush the process. What follows is an 11-month excursion through both Annette’s life and the emotional journeys that Elan, Jonathan and their mother take. More often than not, “306 Hollywood” is at its best when it’s with Annette, who was truly a fascinating woman. Elan and Jonathan had the foresight, at least a decade before she passed, to film interviews with her every year, and she shines. She is, as she says, the last of her circle of family and friends on the totem pole, the only one left alive, but her wit is ever sharp and her frankness refreshing. Annette, her memory, her legacy and her personality, are, in every way, the driving forces of the film.
Structurally, “306 Hollywood” is more of an essay than a traditional documentary. To explore their own experiences and dig into the textured life of Annette, they turn to a wide and often disparate set of sources, from archeologists to librarians to fashion historians to funeral directors. Generally speaking, these detours add complex layers to the film. But they function best when they aren’t focused primarily on Annette or remembering her. Rather, they shine when Elan and Jonathan use them to make sense of their own experiences, which is where the heart of the film lies.
Annette for all her grace and humor is merely the subject. Elan, Jonathan and their grief are where everything revelatory occurs. The problem is, the film doesn’t often hit the ambitious goals it sets for itself. For all its formal experimentation, only brief moments of it truly resonate — in particular the dramatic recreations don’t feel as cathartic for us as they likely do for Elan and Jonathan. But who is to fault them? From its outset, “306 Hollywood” is an exercise in reckoning with loss and the gigantic — often physical and material — mess that it leaves behind. [B]
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