Ray Pride

The final theatrical release of the brilliant distribution enterprise Wellspring Films, Rupert Murray's "Unknown White Male" is a stimulating essay film, neglecting the particulars that would be found in more traditional documentaries, but suggestive on many intriguing levels about the nature of identity and memory. Shortlisted for the 2005 Best Documentary Academy Award, Murray's telling has become controversial because of challenges to its authenticity as "documentary." Yet the movie does not present itself as definitive: the filmmaking is more elusive than that. Doug Bruce is a stockbroker in New York, a longtime friend of Murray's, seems like a nice guy, had a nice life. In 2002, sometime between 8pm on July 1st and 7am on July 2nd, riding by himself toward Coney Island on the MTA, the 32-year-old forgot everything. But isn't this kind of "retrograde amnesia" an invention of movies, like Aki Kaurismaki's sad-sack hero in "A Man Without a Past"? Two MRIs, two CAT scans and twenty-six blood tests later, Bruce--and Murray--have no answers. But the questions! A British philosopher, after watching some of the footage, paraphrases John Locke that Bruce is "certainly the same man, but it's questionable if he's the same person." In the movie, he tries to find out the person he is. It's a film that's wide-eyed with wonder, even when the mind might wonder how intimate or true the movie is. Emotional, unsettling and restlessly compelling, "Unknown White Male" helps define our own truths about who we are. 88m.

"Unknown White Male" opens Friday at the Music Box.

(2006-03-07)

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