Globe and Mail
Fest Watch
By Terence Dick
...and closes with Peggy Anne Berton's epic travellogue The Legend of Buck Kelly. Compiled from over twenty years of Super-8 footage, Bertons wonderfully rambling film is held together by stronge story telling and a love of the north that she must have inherited in part from her father, the writer Pierre Berton.
Eye weekly
Art-house Resolution
By Jason Anderson
Just as rewarding is The Legend of Buck Kelly (; April 22, 9pm, Workman). Culling from a trove of gorgeous Super-8 colour photography -- some of it shot by her famous father, Pierre, while on family trips -- Peggy Anne Berton creates a lovely cine-memoir that links her quest for inspiration and self-definition to her stays in Dawson City in the Yukon and to her fixation on Jeff Buckley. As modern rock's holiest casualty, Buckley has attracted plenty of mash notes from bereft admirers, but Berton's film is unique for its humour, insight and casual beauty.
Broken Pencil Magazine
The Legend of Buck Kelly
By Nadja Sayej
“Where does a body go between the time it goes missing and the time it is found?” is the core question behind The Legend of Buck Kelley, one that takes 70 minutes of grainy super 8 to answer at the world premiere by underground icon Peggy Anne Berton. That’s not the only question it raises. Did Jeff Buckley, 90s rock heartthrob, really walk into the Mississippi river? Did he really die in 1997? Was he really singing Zep’s Whole Lotta Love? And was it really his body found seven days later? And seriously. What has to happen for a long-standing celebrity obsession to die? Well, it’s not so simple. There’s much overlapping in this piece; especially in Berton’s trademark style of charming and nonlinear storytelling that twirls Buckley events with her own personal musings and curiosities. While Buckley carried along his father Tim’s music legacy in his own way, it’s hard to ignore Berton’s early days were infused with learning how to use a Super 8 camera with her father Pierre (the late Canadian journalists who wrote an average of 15,000 words a day, 50 books in total). “Peggy Anne,” he would say while she sat wide eyed before the television, “you have to get down to work, you have to be a professional.” And she did. This is Berton’s biggest masterpiece yet, cutting and pasting 400 rolls of film to create a DIY collage diary indulging in her rock obsession. Shamelessly. But here’s how it differs from every other fan’s obsession: they knew each other. Buckley wasn’t just an icon; he was a person in her neighborhood, NYC in the 90s. “It’s a bedtime story, it’s a ghost story. It’s about what haunts you,” says Berton. And from the first moment Berton saw Buckley, she saw him through her lens before her eyelids. One key highlight (or lowlight) is that once Berton got Buckley on film, she quickly learned the roll turned out completely underexposed. All black. But as everything happens for a reason, from that moment on, the film began. “Magically,” she remembers. And now it becomes evident how darkness sheds light. During the film you’ll ask yourself: A rock star obsession? Isn’t she too old to be doing this? And you might nod in comparison until all loose ties come together with a profound realization, cusping at the end of these reels. While at times this feature doesn’t hesitate to ramble on, it does have the intimacy of a really long answering machine message left from your best friend. Which means not everything here is scripted. It’s fun. And organic. And while her dad’s storytelling was so appealing because of his glowing details and driving narrative, Berton’s is just as compelling in her own unique ways: she’s not afraid to get lost in the unknown to prove her point, and has the balls to follow meaning she can’t yet define. So to answer your question about where the body goes—between the time of lost and found—it goes into the narrative, as it’s all a part of the story that will always live on.
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