Three Identical Strangers review - an extraordinary true story
Award-winning documentary that turns from light to shade
The privileges of writing reviews are very few (it’s certainly no way to make a living these days) but one that remains is the possibility of seeing a film before reading about it. Sometimes it doesn’t matter knowing in advance how a story will play out. It’s probably a good idea to let audiences know that they won’t get child-rearing tips from Rosemary’s Baby.
Tim Wardle: 'A documentary director has huge power over the interview subject'
Director of Three Identical Strangers on the most successful UK-made documentary in American box office history
(Warning: spoilers ahead) For a brief 15 minutes, this was the biggest story in America: three boys, identical in looks, discovering each other at the age of 19. Edward “Eddie” Galland, David Kellman and Robert “Bobby” Shafran were all adopted from the same agency, but had no idea they were triplets. They were on the front cover of every magazine, guests on every talk show, and even had a cameo in Desperately Seeking Susan.
Never Here review - conceptual art may damage your health
Echoes of Hitchcock haunt debut feature about voyeurism and obsession
Beware the hidden powers of the cellphone. When in Never Here New York conceptual artist Miranda Fall (Mireille Enos) finds a stranger’s phone, she uses it as the basis for her next art show, tracking down and interviewing the owner’s contacts, listening to his music and using his GPS history to retrace his steps.
Filmworker review - a life dedicated to Stanley Kubrick
Totally devoted to the master; a fascinating documentary about Kubrick's righthand man Leon Vitali
What would have happened to Leon Vitali if as a schoolboy he had gone to see that other 1968 hit sci-fi movie, Barbarella rather than Kubrick’s 2001? It’s impossible to imagine that a life devoted to the oeuvre of Roger Vadim would have merited a documentary. Luckily it was Stanley Kubrick who inspired total dedication.
CD: in analysis - mothers
An album of real-life stories celebrates Mother's Day
Looking to the 'net to help fund a project is nothing new. Getting strangers to help with the actual creative process, though, is still pretty novel. It's what David Schweitzer's In Analysis project does. Schweitzer is best known for children's TV scores, like Charlie and Lola. Now he and collaborator Mary Richards have created a virtual analyst's couch.
Chance, Universal review – Hugh Laurie is reborn as a film-noir shrink
Dr House finds a new home in San Francisco
Hugh Laurie, in his new role of forensic neuropsychiatrist Eldon Chance, tells us that he works with those who are “mutilated by life”, and we soon see that Chance himself falls into that category. He’s in the midst of a divorce, he only sees his daughter Nicole at weekends, and his work seems to fill him with a kind of morbid weariness.
How To Be a Surrealist with Philippa Perry, review - 'exhilarating'
The psychoanalyst investigates the world of Dalí, Buñuel and Man Ray on BBC Four
Anyone with even a passing interest in surrealism should watch Philippa Perry finding out How to Be a Surrealist and, in the process, creating an exhilarating and richly informative BBC Four film. In October 1924 the Surrealists opened an office in Paris called the Bureau of Surrealist Research and invited people to drop in to recount their dreams.
Freud: Genius of the Modern World, BBC Four
Dr Freud takes his turn in the psychiatrist's chair
Recently the television historian Bettany Hughes, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, energetic, enthusiastic and rather astonished, has tramped across the continents on our behalf, making a clutch of hour-long documentary introductions to the individuals with the most profound influence on human society. For this third and final film (made in association with the Religion and Ethics department of the Open University), she had as her quarry the medical man whose insights, however intuitive rather than scientific in the modern sense, formed and still form our view of ourselves.
The Institute of Sexology, Wellcome Collection
On the men and women who spent their lives researching sex
There is nothing erotic or titillating about The Institute of Sexology, an exhibition the Wellcome Collection plans to keep open for a year. Those expecting a display of fertility symbols, fetish objects, kinky clothing or sex aids down the ages will be deeply disappointed. Just about enough objects and images are included to keep you interested, but the bulk of the show is not dedicated to sexual practices but to the 19th- and 20th-century doctors, anthropologists and psychologists who spent their lives studying sexual behaviour.