Unknown White Male: A True Story – DVD Review

Film, Reviews


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Wellspring and Filmfour presents Unknown Whit Male: A True Story. Running Time: 88 minutes. Rated PG-13 for drug references and brief strong language.

Director:

Rupert Murray

Cast:

Doug Bruce”¦”¦”¦.Himself
Rupert Murray”¦”¦”¦.Narrator

The Movie:

Amnesia has been a Hollywood staple for a long time and is a regular in daytime soap operas, most films getting what amnesia is completely wrong. Unknown White Male is a documentary that follows one man as he deals with this rare real life ailment. When director Rupert Murray learned that his friend Doug Bruce had lost all his memory one night in 2003 he decided to make a movie about it.

This truly is a curious story. Doug Bruce woke up one morning on Coney Island with no idea of who he was or how he got there. Not knowing what do to he went to the police. They took him to a hospital to try and figure out who he was and what could be done for him. After being asked his name and constantly responding, “I don’t know,” someone handed him a pen and had him to write his name. As the pen went to the paper his name instantly came back and he wrote Doug Bruce on the paper.

From there we follow Doug as he is reintroduced to his family and friends. One friend emotionally talks about having to tell him that his mother had passed away a few years ago. The film takes an interesting angle in showing not only what Doug is going through, but also what his friends and family are going through as well in helping Doug deal with what’s happened to him.

The most interesting idea presented in this film is Doug’s reintroduction to the world. He gets to see everything again for the first time; from the taste of food, strawberries and chocolate moose, to his first visit to the ocean, from his first snow to his first fireworks, to his reintroduction to great music like The Rolling Stones. So many things that we take for granted were knew and interesting to him.

Another interesting aspect of this film is the bits and pieces of film shot of Doug before the amnesia. Its gives a small glimpse of who Doug was before, if only on the surface. The look on Doug’s face when he watches footage of himself that he has no memory of is one of wonder. It’s hard to imagine the things going through his mind at the moment. He later describes seeing this footage as “sad” and having “no emotional attachment to it.”

There’s no doubt that amnesia makes for an interesting story. However, while interesting, this documentary is riddled with problems, the biggest one being the cinematography. The film has a gratuitously unnecessary use of fish-eye lens and other wacky camera effects that distract from the story being told. For being a documentary too many of the shots seem far too planned and self-aware. I commend Rupert Murray for taking such an active interest in his friend’s recovery and wanting to share his story, but the film might have been better served in the hands of an experienced documentary filmmaker. They might have been able to put the footage together in a more interesting and compelling way.

The DVD:

The Video:

The film is presented in widescreen 1:85:1. The footage in this film varies from decent to terrible. Some footage used in the film was shot by Doug in the time following his return to his regular life. Much of this footage is very green which is really annoying, the rest is very shaky.

The Audio:

The film is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. Why does a documentary need to be in 5.1? The sound is like the video varying in quality. Although the bad audio doesn’t effect the over all feel of the film the way the bad video does. And the music in the film isn’t very good.

Extras:

Visualizing Memory: Making Of”¦: 11 minutes. Rupert talks about the images he chose to “fill up the film so it just wasn’t talking heads.” One of my problems was the random images and felt it would have worked better with just talking heads.

The original sand dune sequence: 4 minutes. This is an alternate cut of one of the image sequences the director talks about in the previous featurette. Not interesting.

The Man Before Amnesia: Interview with friends: 6 minutes. Cut interview footage of his friends talking about who Doug was. This is kind of interesting, to get more insight into the man. “He liked getting stoned.” “He liked The Cramps.”

The Experts: Extended Interviews: 10 minutes. Just what it says it is, more footage of the doctors talking about what happened to Doug. This is kind of interesting but doesn’t shed much new light. If it had I imagine it would have ended up in the film.

Where Is He Now Featurette: 8 minutes. An interview done with Doug after the making of the film but they spend more time talking about his time during the film than what he’s up to now.

Q & A with the Director & Producer: 5 minutes. Apparently there were some people who thought the movie was a fake. After a screening of the film Rupert asked the audience if they thought it was fake. One man raised his hand he said, “Everyone looks like they’re acting.” Rupert then goes on to defend the authenticity of the film.

Theatrical Trailer

The DVD Lounge’s Ratings for Unknown White Male: A True Story
CATEGORY
RATING
(OUT OF 10)
THE MOVIE

7
THE VIDEO

6
THE AUDIO

7
THE EXTRAS

6
REPLAY VALUE

3
OVERALL
6.5
(NOT AN AVERAGE)

Mike Noyes received his Masters Degree in Film from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. A few of his short films can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikebnoyes. He recently published his first novel which you can buy here: https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-Years-Mike-Noyes-ebook/dp/B07D48NT6B/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528774538&sr=8-1&keywords=seven+days+seven+years