44 / CHRONICLESnSCREENnSiren Songnby Katherine DaltonnI’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing;nwritten and directed by PatricianRozema; Vos Productions.nShall I part my hair behind?nDo I dare to eat a peach?nI shall wear white flannelntrousers, and walk upon thenbeach.nI have heard the mermaidsnsinging, each to each.nI do not think that theynwill sing to me.n”My theory,” says Patricia Rozema, “isngood art is what you like.” Rozema, andown-to-earth, 28-year-old Canadian, isnthe writer, director, editor, and coproducernof I’ve Heard the MermaidsnSinging. Mermaids can be hard tondescribe: It is both a film about independencenand a Canadian ode tonincompetence — about an impossiblynred-haired, wildly inadequate “organizationallynimpaired” temporary secretarynin Toronto named Polly.nPolly is the kind of person who saysn”Holy Moly,” whose polyester sweatersnand milk mustache and malapropismsnbelie a vivid inner life. She comesncomplete with bicycle and a slightlynnosy love of taking black-and-whitenphotographs. She also has a salt-of-theearthnself-sufBciency and sincerity thatnputs the better dressed, better educated,nbetter spoken people she idolizes tonshame. To her employer, the curator,nPolly is just a “sweet imbecile,” anhalf-life half-lived. But she is more likenwhat the Russians call a holy fool —nwiser than the “wise,” and under somengood angel’s protection.nRozema does not pretend she hasnno axes to grind. The trick, accordingnVITAL SIGNSnto her, is to distract the audience fromnthe proselytizing at hand with the storynof Polly’s coming of age. “I do spend anlot of time thinking about what Pmntrying to say and how I’m going to hidenit,” Rozema says and smiles. “I havenstrong didactic, evangelical tendenciesnwhich I have to sugarcoat with reallynnice characters like Polly.”nRozema’s ax here is just the old sawn”Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”n”Artistic relativism” is what Rozemancalls it, and it sounds almost too simple,nperhaps. But then again, if thenexcellent is something other than whatnyou like, who is making that judgmentnfor you? Is taste something you shouldnreally leave up to the art critic at thenToronto Star? Or Anatole Broyard atnthe New York Times Book Review?nSomebody in the English departmentnat Yale? Your mother? Or someonenwith a more forceful personality ornbetter credentials? To say good art isnjust what you like is, I’ll grant you,nnaive. But if good art is what somebodynelse likes, that’s just pretentious.nAnd what good has pretension evernbeen to anybody?nSo our heroine, our champion ofnthe independent opinion, is this 31year-oldn”person Friday” who proclaimsnthings like, “Isn’t life the strangestnthing in the world?” and “Y’know,nsometimes I think my head is like a gasntank, and you have to be really carefulnwhat you put into it, or you mess upnthe whole system.” It’s like having DonnQuixote for your knight. CertainlynPolly is nothing if not unpredictable —nfrom ordering by number in a Japanesenrestaurant (she gets squid), to takingnphotos of a couple in the park (she getsncaught), to being hours late for thencurator’s birthday party (with lipsticknover the entire lower half of hernface).nPolly is, says Rozema, “my licensento be earnest.” She is ours as well;nendearing for just that earnestness, andnby the end of the movie so wonderfulnnnbecause, despite every crazy thingnabout her, she is right. And the curator,nwith whom Polly is in love (“that’sna strong word to use when it’s not yournmother, but there you go,” Pollynshrugs), is not right. Polly sends in hernphotographs (under a “pseudo-name”)nto the curator, who dismisses themnwith a glance and a sharp remark andndestroys Polly. Polly pedals home,nburns all her prints, and pushes herncamera off the roof. It is a terriblenscene, really, for all Polly’s funninessn— it is as if Shakespeare’s bestnfool, Dogberry, and not Lear, werengoing mad on the heath.nNot many films take a line of Eliot’snfor their title, even a line from his mostnfamous poem. Rozema says she wasnhard up for a name, happened to benrereading “Prufrock” one day, andnlatched upon the image for her film.nEliot’s elegantly metered dirge to thendeath of initiative is mournfully sophisticatednand cynical, in a way neithernRozema nor Polly is; Rozema has tonstretch the image a bit to make it fitn(those mermaids show up in Polly’sndaydreams).nThere are, actually, another threenlines which fit the movie better:nWe have lingered in thenchambers of the seanBy sea-girls wreathed withnseaweed red and brownnTill human voices wake us, andnwe drown.nIt takes so little — an oflhand remark—nfor the curator to kill what was for Pollynthe whole of her existence. But holynfools live under the special protectionnof the Gentleman upstairs, and Rozemanhas written a comedy: Pollyndiscovers her idol is a fraud, and that’snall she needs to bounce back in hernidiosyncratic, inimitable way.nThis film is not a product of Hollywood.nI’ve Heard the Mermaids Singingnwas made for peanuts ($275,000nAmerican) and shot in 23 days, with an