Mix-Up (1985, Francoise Romand)

An awesome little movie that my memory is already threatening to lose since I watched it right in between two Japanese mind-fucks, Glory to the Filmmaker and Sukiyaki Western Django. This is an English-language documentary by a French filmmaker about two British couples who raised each other’s children after a mix-up at the hospital. One mother knew it, or at least strongly suspected, and constantly fussed over what should be done, tried desperately to stay in contact with the other family, wrote letters to George Bernard Shaw, and so on. Other mother was unconvinced that there was a problem and just carried on. Unexpected end result is that one of the girls grew up twice loved as the other.

Excellent, interesting movie… well-considered storytelling with tons of cool framing tricks and window/mirror effects. All of the people involved gamely play themselves, relaying events and participating in recreations. Listening to them talk, you wouldn’t think these to be the kind of people to go along with a comic sort of retelling of their painful pasts for a foreign camera crew, but thankfully they did. A quirky sort of movie, but in a good way. Each member of the camera crew was shown during the closing credits – I think that’s a first for me.