'A Photographic Memory' charts a daughter's dive into the legacy of a mother she never knew

The accomplished parent that photographer-writer Rachel Elizabeth Seed ne'er knew is the prima of her profoundly affecting “A Photographic Memory,” 1 of past year’s champion documentaries, yet making its mode to Los Angeles theaters. This poetic gem is simply a travel from the value of lack to the serenity of presence, acknowledgment successful nary tiny portion to the inquisitive, talented pistillate pulled from obscurity: Sheila Turner-Seed, whose beingness was abbreviated but afloat and worthy revitalizing.

Turner-Seed, a journalist, was 42 erstwhile she died successful 1979, leaving down an 18-month-old daughter, a bereft lensman hubby (Brian Seed) and a bequest of wide-ranging, globe-trotting reportage that culminated successful a renowned oral and ocular past called “Images of Man.” The task was anchored by Turner-Seed’s groundbreaking interviews with the world’s champion surviving photographers astatine the time, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Cecil Beaton, Lisette Model and Gordon Parks. And though she lone ever referred to herself arsenic an amateur with a camera, Turner-Seed erstwhile saw a photograph of hers onshore connected the screen of the New York Times.

That her girl besides pursued photography and nonfiction storytelling could beryllium viewed arsenic the manifestation of a profoundly felt connection. Was pursuing her mother’s passionateness the astir readily disposable mode to process a idiosyncratic nonaccomplishment the manager fundamentally had nary representation of? Seed lone began exploring the existent breadth and emotion of her mother’s bequest erstwhile she herself reached the property that her ma died, a milestone fraught for galore grown, parentless children.

What the younger Seed found, accompanied by memories from her mother’s colleagues, was a affluent archive of adventurous enactment and idiosyncratic expression: photos, journals, interaction sheets, Super8 film, audio pieces and a trove of interviews. These discussions uncover a soulful, probing caput that not lone kept her subjects connected their toes, but warmly elicited thoughtful answers astir the quality of their moment-in-time art.

Turner-Seed’s ain penning lays bare a conflict for self-fulfillment, to reconcile the accepted values pushed by her Jewish migrant parents with a restless request to observe and marque her ain way. In an particularly revealing diary introduction from 1972, she wonders if she’ll turn successful her chosen fields if she marries and has a kid — but also, volition she privation to? A lanky, lukewarm beingness with a sociable smile, Turner-Seed is ne'er acold from a keenly observed thought oregon ambivalent feeling.

Why “A Photographic Memory” stands out, however, is her daughter’s handling of this precious life. It’s a heartbreakingly imaginative conjuring of the parent-child transportation that ne'er came to be, but which Seed and her editors (including documentary cutting fable Maya Daisy Hawke) finesse to life.

With melancholy and playfulness both, Seed threads successful her ain introspective voice-over and modern footage (poring implicit material, visiting her dad, sparring with a boyfriend). She besides adds grainy play re-creations of her mom’s interviews, Seed playing her ain genitor successful these 8mm snippets. Eventually, exertion allows these distant intimates to stock a frame.

Biographical and essayistic, “A Photographic Memory” suggests some a pistillate funny successful locating her singular mother, gone excessively soon, and an creator exploring her ain place. Of the impulse to instrumentality a photo, to drawback the moment, we perceive Cartier-Bresson excitedly archer Turner-Seed, “Life is once, forever.” Her aboriginal daughter’s marvelous movie embodies that thought beautifully.