Now and again, when not reading, scribbling, or swimming, Girl Writing goes to the movies and, from time to time, does a roundup of what’s playing. So, here’s my midsummer recap of three favorites: an autobiographical indie from Canada, a documentary from Iceland, and a mega blockbuster about a war veteran trying to get home.

We live in Washington, DC. Some claim it was once considered a tropical hardship post for foreign diplomats. Having lived in the area most of my life, I believe it. This summer has been hot in many different ways. In town a little more than usual, seeking respite and distraction, I’ve been a frequent moviegoer.

On Wednesdays, our local cinema, the Avalon, offers special one-night-only screenings of indies, foreign films, and documentaries. My husband, Harry, and I are regulars. I love going to the movies on summer evenings long enough to leave the theater in twilight, imagining the chimes of a phantom Good Humor truck.

One Wednesday, “Blue Heron” played at the Avalon. A reflective, lightly fictionalized account of a pivotal summer in director Sophy Romvari’s childhood, the film melds vintage family videos and photographs with dramatized scenes featuring actors as the (renamed) family members.

Sasha, the only girl among four siblings, and her Hungarian immigrant family have just moved from mainland Washington State to Vancouver Island. Her mother initiated the move, hoping a new place, a new school in the fall, will help the eldest, Jeremy. His strange, provocative behavior is becoming increasingly self-destructive and dangerous.

Sasha’s father films and photographs the family constantly, more onlooking videographer than engaged parent. She receives a camera for her birthday. Lonely, she observes and documents her preoccupied mother; the two younger boys at play; and Jeremy, withdrawn, aloof, the center of attention. Summer passes; he and the family disintegrate in parallel. “Blue Heron,” a quiet film, one family’s fictionalized autobiography, illuminates with understanding and experience the challenges all families face when grappling with a loved one’s mental illness.

“Time and Water,” a National Geographic documentary directed by Sara Dosa and filmed in Iceland, was screened on another Wednesday evening. After a hot day, a movie about a glacier sounded like the next best thing to a snow cone of melting, flavored ice shavings.

Based on a book by Icelandic poet Andri Snær Magnason, the film is narrated by the author. He addresses an imagined audience of his descendants in a future time when glaciers have disappeared. The film will be placed in a time capsule at a community memorial service for a local glacier. A glacier must be moving to be alive; this one has died. One day, all will be gone:

“I cannot send you a glacier but at least I can send you this one…To hold ice in your hand is to hold the earth’s memories.”

Not only are the glaciers dying, the culture and the community face challenges and changes, too. Magnason tells the story through his own multi-generational family’s history, accompanied by a collage of photos, home movies, and videos, starting with his grandparents’ honeymoon on a glacier as part of a research party. Finally, the extended family of the community gathers to commemorate the glacier’s death:

“To say goodbye to something we never thought we would lose.”

“Time and Water,” as subtly powerful as “Blue Heron,” similarly particularizes and illustrates a larger issue through a single family. Here, the threat of climate change and environmental degradation is rendered accessible — a present-day allegory.

For something completely different, next up is Christopher Nolan’s three-hour epic, “The Odyssey.” This time, I accompanied my son, Tim, to his neighborhood cinema, AFI Silver Theatre, a restored vintage movie palace with a very big screen. Opened in 1938, the Silver closed in 1985 and re-opened in 2003 as the headquarters of the American Film Institute. It now hosts new releases, classics, indies, and series. Tim’s a regular and keeps an eye on the calendar for me.

We’d opted for a matinee (three hours is a long time). The projectionist gave an impromptu mini lecture comparing IMAX and 70mm as the house settled. Those hours flew by, the audience silent except for chuckles when Matt Damon (oops, Odysseus) soldiered on, superhero-style, despite arrows sprouting from his back.

Nolan’s interpretation is visual translation of Homer’s poem. It’s noisy and violent, but so is the original story. I enjoyed this version, his vision, on its own terms, just as I have enjoyed reading different translations of The Odyssey (most recently, Emily Wilson’s, though I prefer Robert Fitzgerald’s poetic language).

Despite its noise and spectacle, its distance from the restrained grief of “The Blue Heron” and lyrical elegy of “Time and Water,” Nolan’s “Odyssey” is not altogether different from the others. All three concern family, community, and accustomed ways of life under threat. Here, Odysseus and Helen express regret and remorse over the loss of life and irreplaceable family time. Whether or not it’s classically Homeric, I believe and appreciate the emotion in this visual, visceral re-telling.

Walking home afterward, Tim recalled that our family soundtrack for many road trips was The Odyssey, narrated on multiple cassette tapes and packaged in a wooden box. We listened for hundreds of miles, many times through. Hearing it, imagining it, memorizing it, as the original audience might have.

As a writer of historical fiction, I know storytellers make errors. Stories are stories, whether memoir, history, fiction, or family yarn. My husband is the eldest of 12; his siblings remember and tell the same story differently. Pass it on to the next generation? Welcome to a game of telephone. Story-making from memory, telling and re-telling, is personal curation, whether intentional or not. A well-told memory story, like these three movies, rings true regardless.

My husband and I are heading for the Pennsylvania Alleghenies tomorrow. I’m hoping for cooler days and nights. And maybe something good at the drive-in.

Ellen Prentiss Campbell’s collection of love stories is Known By Heart. Her collection Contents Under Pressure was nominated for the National Book Award; her novel The Bowl with Gold Seams won the Indy Excellence Award for Historical Fiction. Frieda’s Song was a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award, Historical Fiction. Blogging as “Girl Writing” in the Independent bi-monthly, she lives in Washington, DC. For many years, Ellen practiced psychotherapy. Her new novel, Vanishing Point, is out now.