Who are we? Are we the collected consciousness of our own history or something else entirely, something that may be defined as the soul? It is THE question. That's what Unknown White Male, in what is probably the best documentary of the year, tries to answer. Obviously nothing concrete is revealed, it is something that we will debate until our little monkey species vanishes of the face of the Earth, but the film sure does make you think it over.

Starting like a million Pulp stories before it; a man, with movie-star looks, wakes up one day on a subway near Coney Island, not knowing who he is. A scrap of paper with a phone number scribbled on it, found in his pocket is his first clue; it leads to the mother of an ex-girlfriend. She tells him he is Doug Bruce, an Englishman, a former-stockbroker, now retired to be a photographer, who owns a beautiful flat in New York's trendy East Village. It could be the beginning of a fun spy flick ala The Bourne Identity or a wonderful sci-fi mystery like Dark City, but this is all real.

Director Rupert Murray who was a childhood friend of Doug's, was still living in London when he heard about his affliction. Eight months after it happened, he travels to New York to meet the new Doug and start filming. The lost time is filled in with footage shot by Doug himself, a new curiosity for him, interviews with people close to him in the aftermath, and recreations of what Doug may have gone through for the first couple months of his new life.

Suffering from retrograde amnesia Doug has lost the memory of absolutely everything from his previous life. Not just who he is, but who all his friends were, the sensations of every day things, every song and movie he ever heard or saw... everything! Now, like a child, he gets to re-experience the world from a fresh perspective, but with the appreciation and senses of an adult. To see snow for the first time, to taste a fresh strawberry, to listen to the Rolling Stones and take a swim in the ocean. Director and editor Murray, with barrage of imagery and sound, does a very good job of recreating what all these millions of little things may have felt like for Doug all over again.

"Certainly he's the same man, questionably he's the same person," John Locke.

The toughest thing is not these lost experiences, it's the relationships that he's built. In the film Doug says he is more comfortable with people that didn't know him before his accident, because they don't expect anything of him. Imagine meeting your father for the first time at 34; how surreal to have that strong bond lost. All the memories of his friends and family now gone; replaced with people that recognize him, but now don't quite know who he is. Murray is there with his camera, as Doug meets a group of their old mates, now a room full of strangers; it is awkward for everybody. His reconnection with his sisters goes smoother; despite not remembering anything about their family history, Doug's natural rapport with them seems to be intact. The interesting thing is that Doug doesn't have many questions about his past.

He is happy to start over with a clean slate; he gets to reinvent himself. An old girlfriend of his confesses to liking the new Doug more. The cocky, sarcastic playboy has turned into a more sensitive and open person. His photography teacher says that his work has gained a lot of depth. Essentially, he's built a whole new world for himself. Nearly two years after his accident, he says that he's afraid of his memories coming back. He's not sure who he will be, if they do. Doug is happy with the man he has become.
Unknown White Male generally stays away from the scientific reasons of Doug's amnesia. It's explored a bit, but no official reason is ever given for Doug's malady. There's a small piece of an interview with a philosopher that adds a little to the discussion. But the film mainly focuses on Doug and those affected by it, the personal aspects. Murray moves the film along at a very quick pace, it's filled with wonderful photography, with multiple types of video playing out like memories; the washed out super-8 to the crispness of 35mm. The film's music and sound design also play a large part.

In a strange way, the weakest part of the film is Doug; he doesn't offer a lot of himself to the film. Understandably he doesn't want to bare his new self to the world. But it doesn't harm the film in any way. Doug is more a shell for the idea of this happening to you or a friend. Someone who we can explore this cinematic malady with, a person to place ourselves in. Ultimately, it is the concept and the delivery of the film that make it so satisfying.

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Originally written for my now defunct documentary column: Truth Be Told

Maybe you've heard about the film where the guy nails his dick to a board. Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist is that movie. While a completely disgusting act, it is perhaps not the most difficult scene in the film to watch. Emotionally, not visually, it gets worse.

If you've seen the slightly-infamous Nine Inch Nail's banned-by-MTV, music video Happiness is Slavery, where a naked man gets poked, prodded and finally pulled apart by machines, you already know a bit about Bob Flanagan. Who is the subject of the controversial documentary Sick. Apart from the final death of Bob in that video, everything else is real. He is a self-appointed super-masochist.

With his body already ravaged by the horrendous disease cystic fibrosis; when every breath is pain, where death is right around the corner; Bob figures that he might as well enjoy a bit more pain in his life. He finds most of this through his life-partner/sadist Sheree Rose. She whips him, pierces him and forces nasty foods into his mouth. But he also performs a lot of it himself. There must be more than 100 shots of his penis in various states of torture in this film, all leading up to the piece de' resistance of a nail going directly through his cock in full view of the camera. Which may just be the nastiest thing I've ever seen on film. I watched it with my hands covering my eyes, like a little kid watching a horror film.

But Bob is doing something right with his life. At 41 he's the longest living survivor of cystic fibrosis; which fills his every organ with mucus. Two of his siblings are long gone from the same disease; most people who suffer from it don't make it out of childhood. Bob has turned it into an art, literally.

He writes songs and poems about it, performs stand-up routines centered around his suffering, bringing it right out there in the open, so people can not ignore it. In maybe his most daring piece, he puts himself on display in a museum, in a hospital bed, where people can come watch his body wreck itself live. He's not shy about a thing. His sadomasochism plays a part of his art as well; taking pictures, making videos and performing it on stage. He is the master of masochistic-mixed-media, a true original.

While he's trying to do everything to display his battle with CF for the public, he's not necessarily trying to be the poster boy for the disease. But through his art and his longevity, he has become one. He volunteers at a CF summer camp for kids, singing funny songs about the reality of their lives. The most touching scene in the film comes when, through the Make A Wish foundation, teenage sufferer Sarah Doucette pays him a visit him . She sees right through all his disgusting acts, not caring a bit about his fetishes, to the heart of the man. With her around, we get to see the tender side of Bob.

While Sick doesn't offer many explanations for Bob's tendencies, it also doesn't hold anything back. There are no experts talking about who he may be, nor is much of his personal history shown. But every method of torture is given its due, every cough is heard loud and clear and when he painfully succumbs to this terrible disease, we are there. His mom has the best explanation for the way he lived his life, "that Bob uses his whips n' chains to punish the body that has betrayed him." This 1997 film by Kirby Dick is well worth seeing, if you can get past the bits of sickness, you'll get to know a man who is very bright, funny and most of all brave.