Review: Unknown White Male

On July 3, 2003, Doug Bruce found himself on a New York subway headed for Coney Island. Looking around at the nearly-empty car, he realized not only did he not know where he was going, but he also had no idea where he had been, or who he was. At some point in the previous 36 hours, everything he knew about himself had vanished, and he was now a nothing more than an anonymous man clad in shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops, with no identification and only the few possessions he carried in a backpack. Terrified, Bruce turned himself into the police.

Equally befuddled, the police took Bruce to the emergency room, where it was determined that, apart from some mild bruising on his head, there was nothing physically wrong with him. Untreatable and still unknown, he was eventually placed in the hospital’s psych ward, where, when he was asked to give permission for his belongings to be put in storage, Bruce picked up a pen and signed his name. Talking about that moment a week later, he is moved almost to tears at the memory of discovering that “I am somebody.” Like many signatures, however, his was essentially unintelligible, and Bruce was told he would be kept in the ward until someone identified him.

So begins Unknown White Male, Rupert Murray’s careful, surprisingly uplifting documentary about Bruce’s amnesia, and the first 18 months of his new life. Luckily for Murray - who had been good friends with Bruce in his former life - his subject began filming himself and his surroundings just a few days after his memory loss, and it is through that footage the movie achieves its deepest intimacy.

Shortly after his arrival in the psych ward (it’s unclear how much time passes, but it seems to be less than a day), Bruce’s voice is recognized by the daughter of a woman whose phone number he finds in his backpack. Though the woman herself doesn’t know him, she feels that she’s heard his voice before and insists that her daughter Nadine call the hospital to speak with the mysterious man. Despite her doubts - in her few, wonderfully genuine moments on screen, Nadine makes it clear that her mother tends to get “too involved” in the lives of strangers - Nadine makes the call and immediately knows the voice on the other end as that of Doug Bruce, a man she briefly dated. Hearing Bruce tell of his phone conversation with Nadine is wrenching: sitting in a blank room less than a week afterwards, talking to his own camera, his voice cracks as he remembers her saying “You’re Doug! You’re Doug.”

Once he is identified, his old life is slowly revealed to Bruce. He finds out that he has a gorgeous loft apartment, is a successful stockbroker who recently quit working to pursue photography, lost his mother to cancer a few years before, and has a father and two sisters who live in Europe. This knowledge, however, means very little to the new Bruce. Though, as evidenced by the fact that he can still walk, talk, and sign his name, the procedural elements of his memory remain intact, his entire episodic memory - the distinct, unique memories that give us our individuality - has been wiped clear. As a result, not only does he not know anyone from his past, but he also has, in a very real way, never lived. In other words, he experiences the world like a newborn, yet “appreciates it with the mind of an adult.” In just a few short months, then, Bruce meets his friends and family, sees Times Square, eats Thai food, sees the ocean (“I was so overwhelmed that I could hardly breathe”), and falls in love - all for the first time.

The remarkable thing about Unknown White Male is how generous and hopeful it is. After the first few minutes of the film, there is none of the terror and confusion that we tend to associate with memory loss and isolation. Instead, the movie is imbued with a deep thoughtfulness, and a strangely universal embracing of Bruce’s situation. As time goes by, Bruce himself cares less and less about when or if  his memory returns (medical history indicates that the chances of it coming back are about 98%). He has created a new life for himself, and is by all accounts a different person, devoid of his old cynicism (“it was good cynicism,” mourns one of his friends), arrogance, and ego. In place of that man is someone with tremendous personal grace, who, in the words of Magda - an ex-girlfriend - seems “More articulate than before. More serious, more sensitive, [and] more focused.”

Rather than lamenting the loss of the “old Doug,” everyone still in his life - from Magda to his father; from his sisters to the friends with whom he partied and vacationed - eventually begins to accept him, though they’re disconcerted by what their friendship with the “new Doug” does to their memories of the person he used to be. As Magda - who, like almost everyone else in Bruce’s life, is uncannily wise and articulate - puts it, “By getting used to who he is now, he’s...undermining his previous self...Getting used to the new Doug...sort of erases the old Doug for me.” Despite their philosophical unease, however, one of the most fascinating developments in the film is that everyone who talks on camera envies Bruce on some level. Even the friends who come across as the most laddish and immature come to see his amnesia as a kind of opportunity. Looking at their old/new friend from the perspective of people just settling in to true adulthood (Bruce and most of his friends are in their early-to-mid 30s), they clearly ache a bit for the chance to start over; to redefine themselves. Rather than being stuck in a rut, Bruce is learning from the world every day, and is able to cut ties with the people from his previous life with whom he no longer feels a connection. Who among us wouldn’t relish a chance like that?

Made for less than $1 million with mostly handheld cameras, Unknown White Male brings together home video footage, interviews, and Bruce’s own recordings in a strange, inspiring mix. The film’s power, though, derives less from its look and story than from the man at its center, and his unwavering sincerity and curiosity. By simply allow Bruce to grow up (in many ways, after all, he was “born” just five days before the start of the film) before us, Murray engages his audience in a story of loss and discovery so rare in its optimism that it becomes truly unforgettable.