Unknown
White Male (*1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
What would you do if one day found yourself on a subway train
in the Coney Island area without any recollection of how you
got there? What if you couldn’t remember your name or
where you lived? What if you didn’t know your family
or who your friends were? What if you had nothing identifying
you and you didn’t have any way to find someone who would
know who you are? Welcome to Doug Bruce’s new world.
That’s what happened to him as he suffered a sudden case
of completely unexplainable total amnesia.
Well, needless to say, the authorities that Bruce hands himself
into are able to eventually find a way to identify him. Word
of the incident spread quickly amongst his friends, including
opportunistic director/narrator Rupert Murray in his feature
debut. Murray, instead of just trying to help his friend regain
his memory and get his life back in order, decides to tape
as much of Bruce’s life and essentially rub his amnesiac
face in his lost memories. And for some reason Doug lets this
new stranger do this to him. It seems exploitative and lame.
It also looks unprofessional. This is an obvious first feature
for Murray. He randomly pieces together shots. He completely
overuses a fish eye lens that I can only assume was meant to
represent seeing the world in a different way or in a disorienting
perspective. Really, it just ends up being annoying and contrived.
Murray conducts several interviews along the way, too. None
of them really offer up anything particularly interesting.
Also, sometimes he doesn’t even clue us into the interviewee’s
name or relationship to Bruce. Not like that would make their
input any more meaningful.
There’s a question as to whether or not this whole film
was staged. I can certainly understand where that line of thinking
is coming from. However, I have to say that it really doesn’t
matter. I don’t care if it’s all fake. All that
matters is if the story that’s told is interesting and
effective, and this one wasn’t. Also, if you don’t
care about the person the movie’s about, there’s
not much bouncing back from that, unless the filmmaking style
is particularly great or unique (which it certainly is not).
Doug Bruce was a jerk. His new incarnation isn’t as much,
but I have a feeling that’s only because he can’t
afford to be a jerk quite yet to the people helping him get
things straightened out. Either way, there’s nothing
about either v1.0 or v2.0 that is appealing or worth documenting.
I think this white male would have been better off left unknown
to me.
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