Once More to the Cabin (2009), a documentary film by Jim and Tom Isler

a documentary by Jim and Tom Isler

Barbara Luccock, a 93-year-old widow, returns to the place where she fell in love in an attempt to say her final goodbye to her late husband, Robert. Barbara and Robert met in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, in 1945, and together returned every summer for the rest of their lives, creating a wealth of memories in the family's log cabin overlooking the harbor.

Filmed by the Luccocks's grandsons, Jim and Tom Isler, “Once More to the Cabin” follows Barbara as she returns to the cabin for the first time without her husband. The film also reconstructs the chance encounter and courtship of the Luccocks by combining stunning present-day footage of Boothbay and interviews with Barbara and Robert, shot in 1997.

More than a tale of an individual romance, “Once More to the Cabin” is a meditation on aging, memory and the ritual of summer in Maine. Photographed in 2007 and 2008 over the course of all four seasons, Boothbay Harbor and the log cabin become active characters in the narrative, enhancing the personal drama by illustrating the cyclical nature of time and life's unfailing pattern of creation, destruction and restoration.

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“By exploring the essence of summer
this deceptively quiet film brings us
closer to the essence of life itself.
Touching, illuminating and even inspiring.”

— George Howe Colt, author of
The Big House: A Century in the Life
of an American Summer Home

Once More to the Cabin
premiered on the Maine Public
Broadcasting Network on
Feb. 20, 2010

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Once More to the Cabin
a documentary by Jim and Tom Isler
2009, 28 min, color