Tell Me Who I Am

Alex Lewis has a motorcycle accident at eighteen and wakes remembering nothing. He does not recognise his own mother; the only person he knows is his twin, Marcus. Marcus tells him their childhood, tells him a good childhood, and Alex builds his life on that account. Clearing the house after their parents die, Alex finds something locked in his mother's cupboard and understands that everything he knew was a shelter his brother built. The documentary runs in three movements: Alex's version, then Marcus's version, then the part where the two sit facing each other. That last section was shot in an empty studio, directly face to face, with the camera staying out of the way, and the question it puts is whether telling someone about pain they cannot remember is help or betrayal. Ed Perkins directed it for Netflix. It went out on 18 October 2019 and runs eighty-six minutes. The source is the 2013 book the twins wrote with Joanna Hodgkin. Who it is for: anyone looking for a documentary on memory, brotherhood and family secrecy. Who it is not for: anyone for whom accounts of childhood abuse are hard going. The film does not show it, but it describes it in detail, and the final section is not easy to watch.