A Married Couple

Not just a time capsule, although that's part of it; this is a full-color archive of the physical details of middle-class Torontohood in the late sixties. The personal details, though, are personal details. Documentarian as nosey house guest, King plants himself among a very tenuous couple, their infant and their dog, and creates the kind of inevitably self-conscious psychodrama that is now familiar to us as post-Osbornes pop culturites. The outside eye seems to create an uncontrollable urge to embarrass themselves, just to make things interesting. But it's not just the merciful one-sitting format that makes this rendition of the tendency more bearable. It's King's (and of course camera guy Richard Leiterman's) eyes and ears; they give the hyperbole enough room to breathe, with all interactions seen through to some kind of conclusion instead of punched up in post. As a result, the raw intimacy routine has enough shape and rhythm and continuity to draw you into the argument instead of driving you to the remote.