If it's true, as Marshall McLuhan has suggested, that the medium is indeed the message, then "The Tracey Fragments" proves that theory in spades. This highly idiosyncratic work has as its focal point "Tracey Berkowitz - 15 - just another girl who hates herself" - a description that comes straight from the mouth of Ms. Berkowitz herself. Tracey is a deeply unhappy youngster who hates her (admittedly horrible) parents, is terrorized by all the "cool" kids in school for insufficient mammary-gland development, spends most of her nights riding the subway, hooks up with a psychotic lowlife who turns out to be a drug dealer, and searches for her little brother whom she's hypnotized into thinking he's a dog and who goes missing by a frozen river when she's supposed to be watching out for him. To help mitigate her misery, Tracey also dreams of having a relationship with a brooding "emo" bad boy at school and fantasizes that she is a famous, universally worshipped rock star.But it is not Tracey's story that is of primary interest here; rather it's the cut-and-paste film-making style director Bruce McDonald has employed to create a sense of fragmentation and dislocation in the viewer - intended, obviously, to mirror the highly chaotic and disordered nature of Tracey's world and life. With rare exceptions, the screen is occupied by as few as two and as many as a dozen shots at a time, often portraying the same sequence from slightly different angles or at slightly different moments in time, or portraying thematically related scenes simultaneously. The question inevitably arises, is the approach effective in what it's trying to accomplish or does it serve as a distancing device for those of us who are trying to enter into Tracey's mind and world. I imagine that different viewers will come to varying verdicts on that point.Personally, I appreciate what McDonald is trying to do here more than I admire it. "The Tracey Fragments," which Maureen Medved has adapted from her own novel, offers many probing insights into the subject of teenage angst, particularly as regards the tremendous pressure modern young people are put under to "measure up" and conform to some arbitrarily agreed-upon social standard. And "Juno"'s Ellen Page gives a stunning performance as the young woman caught in an ever-tightening web of self-hatred (this is, in many ways, the darker side of "Juno," and Page is much less mannered in this role).But, frankly, the movie probably would have been more moving and involving without all the migraine-inducing imagery which succeeds mainly in throwing us out of the story. In fact, there is only one scene in which the split screen technique actually serves a narrative purpose - and that is when Tracey is hiding behind a curtain while her drug-dealer friend is being savagely beaten by the irate boss to whom he owes money. Most of the rest of the time, the approach feels more like a gimmick designed to separate this film from the rest of the "distressed-teen indie" pack than an artistically viable choice in its own right.Still, if you can get past all the artiness and visual distraction, you might just find in "The Tracey Fragments" a thoughtful, sensitive and ineffably sad glimpse into a young woman's heart.

The plot of 'The Tracey Fragments' involves a girl named Tracey Burkowitz running away from home in search of her younger brother, who appears to be lost. The story is told in non-chronological order while separate segments eluding to the scenes of the film appear on screen to give the viewer a somewhat disjointed and fragmented narrative in order to allow us to better understand the mind of Tracey. Try to imagine Todd Solondz's 'Welcome to the Dollhouse' crossed with the look of a Lars Von Trier film with a script similar to the style of Harmony Korine's 'julien donkey-boy' and edited like a Peter Greenaway film made in the 90s and onward. I'd say 'The Tracey Fragments' is about what the end result of that is, but without all the blood, guts, torture, and grotesque sexual content. The style works, but it is not without a couple of serious flaws.For starters, the film does not have a strong opening. Instead of quickly establishing what the film is about or setting any kind of tone or mood, it just drops us into the middle of the story without any sort of indication of what is going on. For the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the film, what is depicted is basically just a bunch of stuff happening. The audience feels immediately disconnected from the film and the result is extremely frustrating. It was so frustrating for me when I first watched it that I had to keep shutting the film off over and over. It took me four separate times to be able to make it past the opening. I'm not sure how most people would be able to handle the way the film opens. Honestly, it's not a narrative problem, it's an editing problem. I felt that Canadian director Bruce Mcdonald, who I think it very talented by the way, should have looked for a stronger way for his audience to digest the style. The style to which this is filmed in can easily be made gimmicky if not handled properly, and for the opening of this film it is not handled properly. Most viewers, if they are not really open-minded, will either leave the theater/room, or they will completely tune out of the film and will not even pay attention when the film's actual narrative comes into play.Once the film does pick up, things move much more smoothly. We are able to understand the plight of the Tracey Burkowitz and we feel for her. We watch her get bullied around at school, we witness her disturbing family situation, and we get to like her. We understand that she is a naive girl who has a tendency to get in way over her head in things and we understand how her warped psyche affects and damages her ability to function normally to the people around her. These particular moments are when the editing style really helps lend itself to the plot and the character. The editing technique comes off spectacularly well at times and helps to also create a strong sense of paranoia and unpredictability in the plot through it's depiction of warped perspective. There are some truly haunting scenes such as the scene in which her drunk father tells her, as a young little girl, the story of how they found her younger brother in Alaska. I found many of these moments to be quite touching and all too effective particularly one in which Tracey receives a necklace from her brother on her birthday. The performance of Ellen Page is also incredibly realistic. Ellen Page has played the role of the creepy teenage girl four times now(Hard Candy, The Tracey Fragments, Juno, and Smart People), and each time it's a completely different character and each time she really is able to lend a lot of personality and depth to the character. I've always been impressed with her performances. Her character here is realistic and, at times, frightening in her naive nature. She has the perfect amount of weird awkwardness that the role requires of her character.I did, however, still have problems. I wasn't fond of the rest of the characters in this film. I understand that with this film's style and with a 77 minute runtime that there isn't exactly much room for character development, but I would have liked it if even one of the characters did something unexpected. As a result of this the film gets intensely predictable when it really shouldn't be. I like it when these kinds of films have more realism to them, but this film takes the character stereotypes of an almost sickening extreme, such as the scene where she has to hide from a thug behind a curtain. I saw the outcome of that scene coming within minutes. So because of all this, the characters surrounding Tracey are all cartoon characters practically and the film feels cold and far too simplistic than it really is.Despite the slow start and the one-dimensional characters, I still recommend 'The Tracey Fragments'. Ellen Page's performance is powerful, the style of the films comes off strong, and there are enough strong moments throughout that make the film worth seeing. It's certainly not anywhere near as bad as most people seem to be saying. There's more than enough worthwhile material here to make the film work. The film is short, effective, and to the point. It's a very powerful little film that I quite enjoyed. That's about all I can about my feelings toward it.

Admittedly, I was a bit put off by this film during the beginning five to ten minutes. At first I found the fragmented screen shots during the opening to be a clever play on the title, but when I realized that this was going to last throughout the entire movie, I seriously considered turning off the TV. "Oh great, another one of those laughable, 'uber-artsy' wannabe films." All of those flashing images and spooky voice-overs was like a sensory overload. But once I understood a little more about the characters and what was going on, I was immediately drawn to it.The Tracey Fragments is about a 15 year old girl caught in a struggle between her childhood innocence and the adult world that she will inevitably have to live in (I think everyone can relate to this at least a little bit, and that's what makes this story so interesting). Dealing with parents that don't understand her, feeling self-conscious at school and trying to understand the reality of her emotions is very confusing and overwhelming for her, which is beautifully illustrated by the disjointed, dream-like sequences that show us little pieces of her world.This isn't one of those "sit back and watch" kind of movies-- the twisted plot line and abundant symbolism requires real participation on the viewer's part. I think that's what gives this story some of its magic... you don't just observe the character, you actually get to experience her thought processes. The images can be shocking and disturbing, but it's all done with taste thanks to Ellen Page's phenomenal acting.All in all, I'm glad I suffered through the first few minutes because I came to really enjoy it in the end. I would recommend this to anyone who liked Requiem for a Dream, Thirteen, Memento, and other weirdly awesome movies.

http://eattheblinds.blogspot.comYou can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. As of late, this phrase has been front-page headlines for all the wrong reasons, but regardless, the meaning behind it stays the same. For all intents and purposes, Bruce McDonald's The Tracey Fragments is a melodrama of After-School Special proportions, regardless of how hard the director (and his editor) try to dress it up as something more profound. Fragmented images act as multiple windows, forming an endlessly elaborate collage, peering into the dark recesses of 15 year-old Tracey Berkowitz's life and mind. This technique has been around for decades, it's origins forever tied to the annals of experimental film-making. Long before Bruce McDonald, the work of Stan Brakhage (the most prolific and famed of all experimentalists) was co-opted by music videos directors who made famous the disjointed, stylistic flourishes common to MTV in the 1980's. TTF looks and feels more like a music video than a conventional narrative film and since most kids who grew up on music videos have come of age, stylistically TTF cannot define itself as anything new.But amidst a mine field of cookie cutter Hollywood films, TTF does manage to distinguish itself as something more than the melodrama it merely is. If you can make it through the first 20-minutes you'll be rewarded, since at this point there seems to be a departure from the conventions of story telling into the hyper-personal, interior realm of a 15 year-old kid struggling with herself, her family and the unforgiving world around her. This portrayal may be framed within the plot driven melodrama, but McDonald reaches beyond plot by emphasizing the impressionistic quality of the visual collage he has painstakingly cobbled together. This is when the film becomes interesting, when the visuals take over and expand the film watching experience into something haunting and poetic. The dreariness and drab of Tracey's lower-class life transcends into something beautiful as each frame of her collage acts as a window into her soul. Ultimately, TTF's greatest asset is it's ability to effectively portray the mixed up mind of a teenager who is desperately trying to make sense of her world. We've all been there and we've all lived it, now you can relive the experience only this time, without the acne scars.