306 Hollywood

The Bogarin siblings use many methods of storytelling to tell us the tale of their family, creating an atmosphere in 306 Hollywood that is Errol Morris-meets-Wes Andersen. It’s a beautiful documentary filled with magical realism and most importantly the heart and soul of their grandmother.

The siblings address their family through a Wes Anderson lens, with a tone so playful and visually poetic that it drops into surrealism. It feels like a fresh new approach to an old genre — a willingness to not just embrace the subjectivity of family documentaries, but to charge into it full-bore.

Despite its tendency to lean upon self-serious reimaginings, it is nonetheless an engaging and tenderly drawn film that is likely to resonate with anyone who has had to do the tireless work of sorting through an estate of a family member.

When it works, the movie strongly evokes the feeling of sorting through a loved one’s possessions after their death.

The result feels like an experiment to determine whether sheer creativity can transform the mundane into the magical, and qualifies as a partial success. If nothing else, you have to concede that they tried.

A family portrait that plunges into what will strike many viewers as T.M.I. territory, the documentary 306 Hollywood makes for morbid, at times insufferable viewing. But its solipsism is part of its message.

The universal truths are banal, the narcissistic navel gazing in this episode of “Hoarders” just inspires eye rolling. 306 Hollywood is a home movie best left to the home it was shot in.