“A stunning, complex portrait of an individual who gleefully marched to the beat of her own drum.”

You would be entirely forgiven for never having heard of Yolanda Shea – her name was certainly new to me, and it’s safe to assume the vast majority of viewers would have the same reaction. Yo, as she was affectionately known, was born somewhere between Switzerland and Italy at some point in the early 1920s, but eventually found her way to the United States, taking up residence in a small cottage in the California neighbourhood where she spent her final decades. This is where she met Anna Fitch, who had not yet become a respected documentarian. Over nearly twenty years the two women forged a strong, ironclad friendship that lasted until Yo’s death a decade ago. In the time since, Fitch has been laboriously trying to preserve the memory and legacy of her friend, who she wholeheartedly believes has a story worth telling. Part of this involved a quite ambitious project: building a small replica of Yo’s cottage in the hope of capturing the life of a woman who may no longer be physically present but still lingers in the lives of the people who knew her. The friendship between Fitch and Yo, and construction of the replica, form the foundation for Yo (Love is a Rebellious Bird), a poignant and engrossing documentary Fitch directed with her partner Banker White. They used a blend of footage filmed by Fitch over the years (since the director was always transparent with her intentions to make a film about her friend, which Yo gladly encouraged), as well as archival documents from earlier in the lives of both women and new scenes covering the years following the subject’s death. The result is a stunning, complex portrait of an individual who gleefully marched to the beat of her own drum, handcrafted by someone who truly adored her – enough to create this beautiful, evocative tribute to a woman who clearly made a difference in the lives of everyone she encountered, and whose story is now made available for a much wider audience.

When choosing a subject for a documentary, there needs to be some statement of purpose, since this not only guides a filmmaker when developing the themes but also indicates what the viewer should take into consideration, especially when the subject is slightly unconventional. In the case of Yo (Love is a Rebellious Bird), we mercifully don’t need to wait long to understand why this is a fascinating subject for a film – from the first moments, where we hear Yo’s irreverent commentary taken in the aftermath of some medical tests, followed by the image of her walking across her cottage’s kitchen, we’re already enamoured. Fitch starts the film by noting that Yo has since died, which immediately removes any suspense about her fate, and allows the film to become a heartfelt tribute to someone whose rich, beautiful life rather than her death is the focus here. Most people would prefer to live to a ripe old age, and someone as fascinating as Yo will never have their death be viewed as anything more than a conclusion. So rather than positioning it as the tragic loss of a friend, the director chooses to create a striking and beautiful rumination on the nature of life and mortality, reflected in the years she spent with Yo as one of her closest companions. Fitch is evidently fascinated by the passage of time and focuses less on the melancholic emotions, instead developing an intentionally irreverent, playful tone that matches Yo’s own personality and positions the film not as a eulogy but an offbeat celebration. Resisting traditional dramatic structure, Fitch tells the story of her friend, whose outlook on life was wholeheartedly positive, taking every obstacle in stride and embracing each day as it arrived, which contains a lesson that applies to every one of us in some way.

While some believe that the responsibility of a documentarian is to observe and record more than to guide the narrative, other filmmakers are more than willing to overlook this principle in certain cases. What we learn throughout Yo (Love is a Rebellious Bird) is that this film is as much about Fitch herself as it is about her friend. Yo was the muse, but Fitch is the artist, and the film positions her equally as a protagonist. She was the silent witness, observing as Yo lived out the final decades of her life, always with her camera ready to capture the moments that were initially viewed as glimpses into her daily routine but which have now been repurposed to form incredible fragments of an astonishing life. This is a vibrant portrait by an artist who saw poetry in the banality of everyday existence while her subject was alive, but also a poignant tribute in which the director questions her own position in this story. Fitch is not simply a filmmaker recording a fascinating subject – she was one of Yo’s closest friends, a confidante and surrogate daughter who was present for the last few years of her life. This is also a story of Fitch questioning her place in Yo’s life, attempting to understand what this unconventional but loving friendship represented to both women. Ultimately, the film conveys the same message as many similarly themed stories: we are all in perpetual search for some kind of meaning. However, the lesson we learn, or rather the observation being made, is that time passes but doesn’t necessarily reveal the answers we seek. The world doesn’t make any more sense to Yo as a woman nearing her nineties than it does to Fitch’s children, who entered her life at roughly the same point that Yo departed. Ageing is less about learning to comprehend the world and more about admitting that we will never understand it, while also holding onto the spark of curiosity, which is what this endearing film uses as its foundation.

There are many signs of a great documentary, but one that stands out is that a viewer is able to step into a story without any existing knowledge of the subject, and walk away having not only been introduced to it, but feeling enthusiastic about discovering more. The challenge is that, with a subject like Yo and her life, most of what we can learn about her is contained on screen already. She was not a public figure, nor was she someone who achieved anything that can be considered really remarkable. Yet her life still forms the basis for a documentary that not only defies the borders of the genre but also captures something lovely beneath the surface, allowing us to feel like we have befriended this unconventional heroine. Tonally, the film walks a very narrow emotional tightrope, managing to be tender and heartfelt without becoming unbearably twee, handling the heavy subject matter with an abundance of wit and playfulness; exactly what we’d expect from an artist paying tribute to a woman who lived her life with such unconventional sincerity. However, the impactful moments (such as when Fitch outlines the circumstances surrounding Yo’s death) do still deal a stunning emotional blow, without being heavy-handed but still leaving an impression. The film tackles many themes, primary among them being art as a filter for grief and the act of processing a loss, but it is propelled by joy rather than sadness. This film is more celebratory of Yo’s life than it is morose about her death, taking a frank and relentlessly honest approach to understanding this woman and everything she represented.  It seems oddly fitting that the final words we hear spoken by Yo are “c’est la vie”, the same kind of declaration that defined and guided her life, as she stands for the people who may not have monuments built in their honour, but whose lives are nonetheless worth honouring.

(c) Image copyright – Mirabel Pictures