The title figure of this documentary by Rupert Murray does not remain unknown for long. His name is Douglas Bruce, a Brit living "a great life" in Lower Manhattan, unaccountably diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, "the rarest kind of amnesia," a total wipeout of the past. (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind without the science fiction.) Murray, a long-time friend of Bruce, even if Bruce can't remember him, has a load of material to work with: a very emotional hospital video taken in the days just after the trauma; a video diary shot by Bruce himself as he reacquainted himself with his normal surroundings; a wealth of home videos that fill in bits of his past; plus Murray's up-to-the-minute footage after he inserted himself into the picture. The attempts to convey visually something of Bruce's disorientation, through the crude photographic tricks of fish-eye lenses and flash pans and pixillation and suchlike, rather than through a sensitive and subjective camera eye, leave a lot to be desired. The most they can do is to acknowledge the need for something empathic, even something poetic. They do not go far toward filling that need. But neither do they get in the way of the verbalized deep questions: How much of who we are is made up of our memories and how much of it is "pure us"? What would be left of us once our memories were taken away? How different would we be if the slate could be wiped clean and we had a chance to start over in midlife? Who, to put it existentially, are we? In the case of Douglas Bruce, these are not idle questions, and they're not hypothetical. The rest of us, at the same time, are not safely outside the scope of inquiry. If, as Bruce himself muses, we all lose and revise and invent memories every day, then what constitutes our true selves? The film, along those and parallel lines, gives us a lot to think about, and a little something to wish for. In light of a prognosticated ninety-five-percent chance of recovery, and no timetable on when that might occur, the next chapter of Bruce's life fairly cries out for a sequel. (2006) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.