Double Take (Johan Grimonprez, 2009)

[oldsheperd]

Did anyone check out this pseudo-documentary? The idea of Alfred Hitchcock meeting his double and the cold war themes, etc, etc, sounds pretty interesting.

[razumovsky]

Double Take had a run at the BFI in London earlier this year. I loved it - the closest comparison that comes to mind would be the documentaries of Adam Curtis, especially The Power of Nightmares which sort of covers similar ground and takes a similar form, although Double Take also has an important fictional element (influenced by Borges, born in the same year as Hitchcock). The footage of Hitch's TV appearances is very funny, too. There is a region 2 DVD from Soda Pictures. This interview with Grimonprez from Cinema Scope is worth a read:

[oldsheperd]

The dvd is coming out on the 14th through Kino

[zedz]

I found this film to be much less than the sum of its high concepts. I just don't think it did a tenth of what it could have done with the idea and I thought the use of found footage was rather ordinary. For the record, I was no great fan of Grimonprez's Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y either, which I thought similarly squandered potentially good material. In both cases it seems like he thought it was enough to come up with a really cool idea, or cool historical associations, and then bask in that coolness rather than work it into something challenging or unexpected.

I seem to recall there was some brief discussion of this film elsewhere on the forum last year, so it might be worth a search.