Hot Docs 2018 Reviews: Three Identical Strangers and Ubiquity

Apr 27, 2018- Permalink

Three Identical Strangers

It’s the first full day of the 2018 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and I have a couple of screenings lined up today.

First up is Tim Wardle’s Three Identical Strangers, which tells the tale of separated-at-birth 19-year-old adopted triplets Robert, Eddy and David, who by chance discover each other and the fact that they were raised within a 100-mile radius. Reunited, the triplets are inseparable buddies who take the media world by storm, hitting all the morning shows, the papers and daytime staple Donahue. The media latches on to the superficial similarities and the guys not only become media darlings but also celebrities in the New York City social scene. They open a restaurant, they settle down, all seems good.

Then their story takes a darker turn. I don’t want to give too much away because the reaction in the audience is palpable, but the rest of the film will have you question nature versus nurture and research ethics in a way that will leave you a little shaken. Seek this one out when you can.

Ubiquity, from Bregtje van der Haak, examines electromagnetic hypersensitivity, through the lives of three people: a telecom engineer who lives off the grid and demands to be filmed with analog equipment, a young Japanese woman who fights against digital power meters, and a Dutch mother obsessed with cell towers, who takes the fight to her local government. All three claim that the omnipresent cellphone and Wi-Fi signals that surround us are causing them major health issues and van der Haak underscores their anxiety by occasionally blasting the audience with unsettling high-pitched sounds. Currently, electromagnetic hypersensitivity is not a recognized medical diagnosis and some in the medical field believe it is a psychological condition that can be treated with behavioural therapy. The audience’s own biases will determine if the doc’s subjects are canaries in the coal mine or something else altogether.

For more information on the 2018 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and for tickets and showtimes visit hotdocs.ca.