JohnDoe
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Unknown White Male (2005) - Footage Included
Unknown White Male
DVD Cover
Genre: Documentary
What is memory and how do our experiences shape us? If we were to forget all the people we had met including family and what we had done how would it inherently change our personality and reality? As the tagline says, "If you forgot your past, would you want it back?"
Welcome to Retrograde Amnesia, the ultimate soapy ploy. Writers have been falling back on it whenever they paint themselves into a corner since the birth of literature. Sure its no it-was-all-a-dream sequence (Dallas) but it still feels like a hackneyed device because the condition is so rare and there are very few documented cases of total memory loss.
Generally it is a temporary condition and seldom does it last longer than a couple of days. Triggered by physical trauma (bang to the head) or extreme psychological distress (Memento), this documentary will leave you with cause to pause the next time the subject comes up.
A hit at Sundance 2 years ago, Unknown White Male tells the story of 35 year old Doug Bruce, a man who in the middle of a train ride to Coney Island has his whole life drop out of his head. Of course he doesn’t know that until he tries to remember who he is and where he comes from.
The once familiar New York skyline is now alien, distressed and disorientated Doug wandered into a police station back in July 2003 to report a missing person, himself. With no wallet and no ID he had no idea who he is or where he lives, panic stricken and alone this sounds like a story of far fetched fiction.
This profound and deeply personal documentary is Directed by one of Doug’s best friends before the trauma. It is as much about his journey back into a foreign world, reforming memories as it is about reassimilating his old life and progressively becoming less interested in it.
Look into my eyes, do they look like Im lying?
Emotionally and intellectually challenging, philosophical quandaries of love and identity offer an alternate perception of reality and of what makes us individuals. Through Doug’s eyes, he tells us his own story while the narrator broadens the scope of the subject. We are constantly left asking ourselves, what would I do?
Empathising with our mystery man, Amnesia is a curse but also a blessing in disguise. Doug is very much a child, an empty vessel that needs filling, seeing the world for the first time. He retains some semantic knowledge like geography, remembers all procedural knowledge like how to speak or swim, but episodic experiences (his life Story) are completely erased.
Faced with the questions of truth and how much of our shared experiences go into moulding our adult selves as unique flowers, Does this mean that the old Doug is dead and now only the new Doug is real?
We get to see him watch his first fireworks display, take a virgin trip to the beach and discover a great band called The Rolling Stones.
Before the event Doug by all accounts was a confident, cynical, money driven, model banging, New York Loft apartment owning stockbroker with a passing interest in photography.
Now he is charming in his sense of wonder of the world and seems to carry an innate innocence that makes it easy to like the man. In his own words from his website "I have the perceptiveness of a 35 year old with the naivety and vulnerability of a 3 month old infant.
Highly effective and like nothing John Doe has seen before, I am a sceptic by nature and went into this expecting a hoax; instead I came out with a cornucopia of new ideas and quandaries about the human condition that are ripe for exploration.
There have been claims that the film is an elaborate hoax because:
a/ The people in it are too good looking
b/ It’s too strange to be real
c/. There has never been a documented medical case this severe
There is no concrete evidence, maybe he just watched Memento one too many times.
After meeting Doug, Writer Director Michael Gondry actually thinks it was inspired by his film Eternal Sunshine on The Spotless Mind, which is funny because the first thing I said to my girlfriend once it ended was, “its like a real life Eternal Sunshine”.
Truth or fiction, personally I am undecided. On the one hand, the secret is to big to keep, someone would have slipped up by now wouldn’t they? Also, if he’s lying then he’s the greatest actor to ever live, because there is an undeniably vacant and lost look behind his eyes constantly and a sincerity, especially in the early footage after the incident that is like a sledgehammer to the heart.
The flipside is that there is no definite reason given in the documentary for his condition. There are tests that can be done to determine quite easily if someone is faking Amnesia and there is also the massive coincidence that he had a friend who suffered from retrograde amnesia for a short time due to a breakdown.
You can judge for yourself. There is no doubt that this is a documentary that demands attention, captivates and must be seen to be believed and the questions it raises make it irrelevant to your enjoyment, in fact they increase it.
The DVD:
Transfer: 4:3 Pan n Scan/Dolby Digital 2.0
Extras: Visualizing memory featurette, Where he is Now featurette, Interviews, deleted scenes and Q&A with the Director.
Visit The official site here
Check out the trailer for Unknown White Male by clicking below
Here is a related clip I stumbled upon that is no less astounding. Clive Waring has the worst case of amnesia ever known, he forgets everything within seconds and much like a fish exists in a reality that only lasts moments.
Horrorphile
Not sure what to think of the possibility of Unknown White Male being an elaborate hoax ... I did think of it at the time ... but decided the filmmakers and actors (if they are) would've been too bloody clever if they'd pulled it off .. .perhaps they have.
Film & TV on DVD
As for UWM, if it is a hoax, they still deserve credit for it being well thought out and executed with military precision.......it is a work of genius if it is....
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Film & TV on DVD
Not sure if it was on SBS or not...well worth teh rental.
Hi Cib
Yeah its funny that some people have said, how can it be real life if all the people in the doco are attractive....have you seen it?
Philosophy Blog
Film & TV on DVD
Unknown White Male offers a unique perspective on the adventure of our perceived lives......Im sure it will inspire a thoughtful blog from you that I look forward to reading.