مستند من هیث لجر هستم I Am Heath Ledger 2017

In a haunting personal documentary, the star of 'The Dark Knight' and 'Brokeback Mountain' comes across more intimately than we've seen, but his demons remain behind a closed door.

If there is any one image you take away from “I Am Heath Ledger,” it’s that of Ledger staring into the camera, spinning it around and around, creating his own sort of impromptu DV-selfie version of the swirling-camera POV dance duets in “Saturday Night Fever” and “Carrie.” The shots are emblematic for a couple of reasons. Ledger, as we learn, was always filming and photographing things, including himself and his friends; it was part of his compulsion to make art, to filter his experience through a vast array of lenses. The bounty of images he left behind is a testament to that creative hunger. Yet the fact that he got off on filming himself so much makes its own statement. “I Am Heath Ledger” is a portrait of the artist as an angelic young narcissist, a self-conjured celebrity image-maker. He was always pushing himself to the next level, which is why, at the age of 28 (when he died), he was already the greatest actor of his generation. But part of that gift was for turning the world into his mirror.

Directed by Adrian Buitenhuis and Derik Murray, “I Am Heath Ledger” is a documentary biography, built around hours of privately shot footage, that is unconventional and in many ways haunting, because it takes you up close to the person Heath Ledger was: a true free spirit, who lived without the rules most people in the entertainment business cling to — and without the boundaries. Raised in Perth, Australia, he’s described by his mother, Sally Bell, as a wild kid who was not about to settle down, no matter what anyone told him, so his parents simply hoped (and trusted) that he would turn out all right, even if that meant he left home as a teenager, cruising into the city for adventure. He already possessed the preternatural confidence of fame, which is one reason he drifted into acting and wound up in Los Angeles, winning people over wherever he landed.