Film

Unknown White Male (2005)

Director: Rupert Murray

Movie review

From Time Out London

A lesser version of this documentary screened at last year’s Sundance, but a re-edit has ironed out some of the difficulties that contributed to cries of ‘hoax’ in response to the story of Doug Bruce, a 35-year-old British former stockbroker-turned-Downtown boho who found himself riding the New York subway one day in 2003 with no memory of who he was or what the hell he was doing there.

I must say that, while I don’t doubt the filmmakers’ honourable intentions, even on a second viewing I found myself spotting holes in Bruce’s account of his memory-loss – which may be the result more of the conflicting nature of his amnesia than any fraudulence. Ultimately, though, the authenticity debate remains intriguing. Equally interesting is the question of why Bruce should choose to document all this on film (and allow his friend, Rupert Murray to do the same). It doesn’t help Bruce’s cause that he is seen in archive footage to have been a smug, arrogant fellow; it’s tempting to imagine that his memory has abandoned him in exasperation. A case of amnesia as overdue self-discovery, perhaps?

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