"I couldn't live with somebody who didn't give making art the importance that I give it -- I just would hate them!" So says 80-ish Betty Woodman in this film about the daughter who indeed became an artist -- and went on to outshine both Betty and her painter husband, George.The couple is brave to have let a camera crew into their world some 35 years after their gifted daughter ended her life in a building leap. They took Francesca's odd photographs -- often portraying herself nude and lying on the ground, as if buried before she is dead -- as artistic expressions and not a cry for help."Those things happen in movies -- they don't happen in normal life," George says of how he once viewed suicide. "I didn't think they really would."Francesca had tried to kill herself once and sought therapy, but managed to complete the deed just days before her father had a show at New York City's Guggenheim Museum.The Woodmans portray themselves as very work-oriented, not a family that encouraged frivolous hobbies. When Francesca floundered, not sure what direction to take in life, Betty recalled saying, "What's this talk of doing something else? You don't know how to do something else!" Francesca was talented and appears to be more successful posthumously than while alive. At times, it seems, her parents are a little envious.But George, at least -- who started to dabble in photography eerily reminiscent of his late daughter's style-- seems to find solace in survival."To stay alive is a pretty good thing to do!"

I liked it, it was well done and showed that serious Art and children do not mix well. The parents were for the most part what they had to be to create Art, they were complete artist and narcissists, and they were very good at both, but it left little room for parenting their children. Their daughter, who perhaps by their ques learned she was on her own early on, appeared for the most part quite needy, lonely, and sincerely obsessed with her art. Maybe as a way to bond remotely with her detached parents. The dedication of the parents to their craft was probably their daughters undoing but also the propulsion of their daughters genius. Yes they clearly loved their daughter, and they clearly feel a standard of guilt measured by all who have someone they take for granted until it's too late, and the parents seemed to be still in a lifelong recovery over their loss, trying to make up for their oversight. The parents seem to confront themselves about these issues and are honest and direct in what they thought they did well and the signals they missed, so I liked it, it was thought provoking and did not beg for sympathy.

This strange documentary summarizes the lives of avant garde photographer Francesca Woodman and her artistic parents Betty and George. We know from the beginning that Francesca commits suicide and so we're alert to clues. Why do people commit suicide? It's very difficult to know, really, but in some cases we're able to see glaring contradictions in a person's family dynamic. The movie is mostly interviews with the parents. The mom, Betty, in particular, presents a strange and forbidding presence, goggling through thick brightly painted glasses, she seems arrogant and fragile at the same time. A narcissist, of course, but aren't most artists narcissistic? A major clue is revealed near the beginning of the interview where the mom declares that she has dedicated her life to art and that she couldn't imagine living with a person who wasn't an artist, "I would come to hate that person!" she states. reveling her prejudice and intolerance for non-artists. The mother's art is mediocre at best, large pottery shapes splotched with crude patterns in primary colors. Perhaps the mother envied the daughter's obvious talent for visual expression.Most suicides by youngsters are the result of them feeling intolerably pressured by their parents' expectations. In Francesca's case there was a unquestioned directive: be an artist...or else! Francesca created her own style of art: pictures of her own, very attractive, nude body posed against shabby, desiccated interiors or wrapped in old wallpaper. The photographs, many of which are shown in the film, are stark, compelling and ironic. She was obviously very talented. She achieved some notice as a photographer, an artist in her own right, but as any artist must she experienced moments of self doubt. Since Francesca's expression was primarily visual and enigmatic her inarticulate diary excerpts, though quoted throughout, provide little insight into what she was going through. In any case her narrow though striking artistic style was bound to run our of new ideas, being so restricted in subject matter. At some point Francesca thinks about giving up art and suggests maybe trying another course in life. Her mother is quick to put a stop to that: "That was ridiculous, of course; I told her, 'You can't DO anything else.'" I can only speculate, but the clues are pretty obvious. The talented but unhappy daughter must continue with a course that even she can recognize is a dead end, or face the hatred of her mother. Her therapist, a necessary accessory to people of that class, is useless, and her father, whose art is not at all bad, is a passive participant in the family drama. As a whole the film is a downer like a slow-moving train wreck. It showcases Francesca's photography and is a sort of introduction to her work, but the intrusion of the parents, who may have been the motivation behind her success and eventually her downfall, is unwelcome except to provide clues to the mystery of her life and death. This film is just too long, it could have expressed the same material in half the time.

This is a rare opportunity to follow the lives of three artists (the parents and Francesca, their daughter) and to experience the drive, passion, insecurities, and tensions involved in creating art.Francesca's use of her own nudity in some of her work enhances what is already a rich visual experience with an intimacy with the artist. You get so close to the family and its dynamics—idyllic in many ways, such as living in beautiful surroundings (Colorado, New York, Italy) and facing mostly one's own internal challenges of being who you want to be, the most you can be, and accepted by others—that you are caught off guard as the "normal" trials and tribulations suddenly spiral out of control and Francesca leaps from a tall building.Was it right for her boyfriend to have questioned whether her work was art--honesty versus support? Why should success matter that much? This sub-theme is gently explored in the contrast between the father's and mother's careers. You expect the movie to end with Francesca's death, but it continues on, on with the broader painting of the Woodmans' tapestry.If you have ever questioned the meaning of life, the unfolding of this story would normally be a celebration of the drive and finding meaning, until it takes you right over the edge. How we suffer for what we care about. How we love what we create and want it to live.I was deeply moved, made to reflect on emotions we all feel at times, and haunted by the fact that the story is not fiction, but true and told by the actual people, including Francesca.