Unknown White Male (Documentary)
Picture: C+ Sound: B- Extras: B- Documentary: B
A young
man wakes up one morning and loses his identity and life completely. He wonders around the city in some clothes,
but is suffering what looks to be total memory erasure in Rupert Murray’s
compelling documentary Unknown White
Male (2005) about a 36 year old stock broker who lost his memory and tries
to get his life back. If only he knew
what that was.
Now if
this were a bad film, he would have instant recall by the end, but the always
fascinating 88 minutes make us question without any sensationalism whatsoever
what we would do in such a situation.
This is as intelligent as it is sensitive and we see all the new experiences
he has for the first time to him all over again. This happened at the beginning of July 2003
and around Coney Island. This work never
suggests it has anything to do with pollution from the 9/11 attacks, though
this critic considered that.
Luckily
for the man who turns out to be Doug Bruce, he has great family and
friends. Murray gets involved early on
and does an ace job of documenting everything.
There are no easy answers and it gets even more interesting when he
looks at older film footage, or has false alarm triggers that he hopes will jar
his memory and does not. It is a mature,
intelligent work about a very serious matter and is highly recommended.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is made of various types of images and
this includes degraded ones throughout and some that are not bad. However, the results add up to what one can
expect from a typical documentary. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has surprisingly healthy surrounds and clarity. Extras include an update on Doug, extended
expert interviews, interviews with friends, director & producer Q&A
session, a making of featurette and extended version of the san dunes
sequence. Some tried to question whether
this happened, so ugly, cynical and unaccountable that media and even
journalism has become, but to say that also says amnesia is all a lie. Guess all that hatemongering is catching up
with us.
- Nicholas Sheffo
