Few documentaries have had the far-reaching cultural significance of the Maysles brothers’ portrait of a pair of mother and daughter eccentrics, Grey Gardens. The film spawned everything from an HBO series to a drag show to a Marc Jacobs handbag. Such is the enduring fascination with Big and Little Edie Bouvier Beale and the crumbling grandeur of their East Hampton home that this film, assembled from long-lost footage shot earlier than that of the Maysles’ movie, will certainly be of interest.
Whether it stands up as an independent entity rather than an adjunct of the more famous film is less certain. There is an oppressive atmosphere to the footage – Grey Gardens is shown before renovation, its basement, Little Edie confesses with a kittenish glance to camera, filled with bags of cat faeces. Director Göran Hugo Olsson’s approach to the footage mirrors that of the compulsive-hoarder subjects: keep everything, discard nothing. There’s some treasure in there somewhere.
