The Last Goldfish

This is a documentary of a forty year search for missing family. Su Goldfish grew up in Trinidad believing her parents to be her only family until they moved to Australia following civil unrest in the islands. Over the years, she quizzed her father Manfred for information about his family which he was always very reluctant to share. Presently, she discovers she has half-siblings from her father's first marriage and gradually snippets of a more traumatic past emerge. 

As her father grew increasingly frail with old age, Su realises that her chance to piece together her family history were growing slim and sits him down for a bare-it-all conversation. He doesn't say much but Su has a large stash of his old photographs, ,home movies and a copy of the family tree they drew together before he passed away. 

Painstakingly she pieces together her own ancestry which takes her on a journey across the world, to places where her grandparents lived where she helps lay Stolpersteins or concrete cubes bearing brass plates inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution, to meet people who knew her father as a young man and begins to imagine herself in his world. She regrets missing an opportunity to meet her father's aunt who was one of the few from her generation to have survived and places remembrance stones on the graves of so many who perished. She reconnects with her siblings and her half-brother who suffered the most from their fractured family and is there when he passes away. It is almost as if she is healing the traumas of her family's past. 

The documentary, which has the director narrating it, maintains an even pace, starts out as a mystery but rarely does the pace rise to create drama. As with such reflections, the most poignant moments occur during seemingly mundane encounters. When you least expect it, there is a flash of serendipitous circularity. Such as the time when she quizzes the current occupants of her grandparents' hotel and realises that they are refugees fleeing persecution from their native Turkey. The documentary ends on a note that gathers everything from the past and looks ahead to newer relationships. It feels like a fitting way to recover from deep wounds from a distant past. 

Title: The Last Goldfish

Duration:1 hour 22 minutes

Director: Su Goldfish