Elan and Jonathan Bogarin’s 306 Hollywood feels like a heartful trip down memory lane, and while that may not appeal to all movie-goers, it is one of the most relatable films you are likely to see all year.
It is a personal narrative that found many ways to express itself because the subject of the film, the Bogarin’s late grandmother, Annette Ontell, had numerous ways that she expressed herself! This story may seem small and have one ask themselves, “Why this story?”, but it will touch anyone who has ever lost a loved one, which makes it a universally appealing story, and quite large indeed.
After Annette Ontell’s death in 2011, Elan and Jonathan returned to the house where they spent many Sundays loving their grandma, 306 Hollywood Avenue in New Jersey. It looks like your average suburban house, painted white with a nice size front lawn and located in a quiet neighborhood. They viewed the house as her entire world since they only ever saw her there, and know that she was a former dress designer. As they begin to dive into the years worth of accumulated memories and mementos, our filmmakers realize that this house is a shrine, a monument, a ruin, and even a time machine to the woman that was their larger-than-life grandmother. They began to uncover the many layers about the woman they loved and are transported to how she lived before they were born.
After speaking with Sherry Anthony, a funeral director, our filmmakers learn that a soul will stay in the place that person loved most. They give themselves 11 months, the time a soul will stay put before moving into the next plain, to make their grandma tangible again in the house she, and they, loved. We are given many interviews with leading experts about their theories and ideas about what happens to someone we loved once they die, and how we, the living, are to process the death. I asked myself, “Don’t I try to find meaning when someone I love dies? Don’t I try to bring them back so the pain isn’t as strong?” This desire to reconnect with the part of us who died is something far more universal than most realize. Like our filmmakers, we search and scour for evidence that our loved one isn’t really, truly gone. Through every hand-made dress, homemade video, and molded tax book, we see our filmmakers experiencing grief as they try to find their grandmother in the house that they associate with her, and fail to bring her back. Which reminds us that we don’t really know what happens after death but we hope that our loved ones are someplace wonderful.
‘306 Hollywood’ does not have a star-studded cast, nor a plot that leaves audiences guessing at every turn, but it does something far more spectacular and meaningful. It reminds us that loss and grief are universal.
One of the most poignant interviews comes from the director of the Rockefeller Archive as he explains the importance of preserving records of the famous and powerful, but the equal importance of his own family’s archive of treasures. This is something that runs throughout 306 Hollywood, the notation that value is weighted by those closest to the person, and that it can be found equally in things big and small. We see the Bogarins find value in big things, like the 10 years worth of interviews that they conducted with their grandma, and the small things, an extremely expired can of gefilte fish.
My favorite part of the time machine flashbacks were the interviews Elan conducted once a year from 2001-2011. These were like miniature studies in the nature of memory and revisionist history as we see how she edits the footage to showcase the woman she loves and memorialize the impact Annette had on Elan’s life. Over-the-top zooms and post-production music laid over seem to take away from the beauty of this found footage, except in one very raw and emotional moment. We witness Elan and her mother convince her grandma into wearing the dresses she made fifty years ago. She protests and laments about how she was ninety-five pounds, there is no way the dresses will fit on her, and that she’s wearing her sneakers while trying on these dresses. Elan’s mom finds her favorite dress that Annette made and wore, and is so happy when it does fit on Annette again. They are able to take a “still” of her in that dress from long ago, Annette makes one more comment about having to wear her sneakers while in the beautiful dress, and the moment comes to an end. This footage is emotionally charged and beautiful, as we see a genuine moment unedited. It’s straightforward and honest in how families interact with one another, and perfectly encapsulates the special bond, language, and love we share with our own families.
306 Hollywood does not have a star-studded cast, nor a plot that leaves audiences guessing at every turn, but it does something far more spectacular and meaningful. It reminds us that loss and grief are universal. That when in the midst of it, we search for that loved one wherever we can and are ravenous to know them better. Elan and Jonathan Bogarin have created a beautifully crafted love letter to the woman they considered their second mother. Their groundbreaking documentary turns the ritual of cleaning out their late grandmother’s house into a deep study of what happens to those who are left after a sudden loss. I think that one of the last lines in the documentary echoes the experience the audience goes through with the Bogarins, and even in their own dealings with a loss. “A house is a universe, an entire world. And it’s always amazed me when I go to the sites of houses I know, where the house has been removed. It’s always astonishing and appalling and outrageous that the footprint is so small. It’s like taking all of the stars in the galaxy and putting them in a thimble. To see all of that life put into a few hundred square feet on the ground.”
306 Hollywood is the cathartic movie we need when struggling through loss. Be prepared to fall in love and laugh with the extraordinary woman that was Annette Ontell, and weep as you reminisce about the extraordinary people who have come and gone in your own life.
94 minutes. ‘306 Hollywood’ is not yet rated. Opens Friday, October 12 at Laemmle’s Royal Theatre and Laemmle’s Town Center 5.
