Gold Bars: Who the F*ck is Uncle Ludwig
(Canada, 88 min.)
Dir. Billie Mintz
Billie Mintz’s latest documentary Gold Bars: Who the F*ck is Uncle Ludwig has all the elements that one might expect from a Hollywood thriller. There are claims of wealth mysteriously obtained, talk of a possible identity swap, and the search for proof of hidden Nazi gold. However, as intriguing as this all sounds, the reliability of the individual narrating this salacious tale is always in question.
For several years now, Montreal lawyer Glenn “Joseph” Feldman has been recounting the story of how his former business partner and best friend, who is never named due to an ongoing lawsuit, suddenly came into a lot of money. While the ex-partner asserts that his newfound wealth was a result of good investments and business deals overs the years, Feldman is convinced that the funds came from a more sinister place.
Triggered by an unlocked memory from the past, Feldman believes that Nazi gold fuels his former associate’s financial engine. According to the lawyer, it all goes back to one fateful day in 1983 when his then business partner, along with the man’s father, showed up at his office seeking help. Apparently, the ex-partner’s relative Ludwig Delphiner, a chemist who worked at Abbott Laboratories in Montreal, was dying and they wanted to ensure that his assets remained in the family. The problem was that the will documentation they provided did not have a witness’s signature on it, so there was no way to prove it actually reflected Delphiner’s final wishes.
Considering that the business partner’s father was also like a dad to him, Feldman succumbed to pressures and falsely listed himself as the witness, despite having never met the man affectionately referred to as “Uncle Ludwig.” He only had an inkling that something might be afoot when, after Delphiner’s passing, the ex-partner took him to the deceased man’s home to assess the value of his assets. It was there that Feldman claims to have seen two important things: 1) a photo of Delphiner in a Nazi uniform; and 2) a hidden bunker in the basement that was filled with what he was told was scrap metal.
Once blinded by naivete, the now clear-eyed lawyer is positive that the metal was Nazi gold bars stolen during the Holocaust.
While the picture of events is clear in Feldman’s mind, even the most detailed image can become distorted when submerged in the murky waters of memory. As Gold Bars: Who the F*ck is Uncle Ludwig captures, much of the lawyer’s uphill battle to expose the source of his former friend’s wealth primarily hinges on his recollection. With little physical proof to support his claims, Feldman frequently finds himself fighting for vindication in both legal courts and the court of public opinion. Even his one trump card, the will itself, in which he alleges that Delphiner’s signature was forged, does not make for a strong hand. Especially since the document was already tainted by his illegal forgery that “legitimized” it in the first place.
Complicating matters further is the fact that Feldman has a big personality and is a lively storyteller. His own daughter Alex, an aspiring filmmaker who the audience follows as she attempts to make a documentary about her father’s plight, admits that her dad frequently mixes truth with elements of fiction when recounting events—something that Mintz underscores by essentially making a documentary about making a documentary.
Gold Bars: Who the F*ck is Uncle Ludwig may play out like an investigative mystery, with the key elements of Feldman’s story charted and explored like suspects on a police crime board, however, it is ultimately an examination of the ways that obsession can strain familial bonds. Pulled down into the rabbit hole of her father’s theories, Alex is frequently forced to confront the realities that there is a real chance that her father’s story has more falsehood than he is willing to admit.
Aside from Alex’s desire for a type of father-daughter relationship that is no longer there, replaced by her dad’s obsession over the investigation, Mintz’s documentary does not offer much insight into the pair’s bond prior to the investigation. As a result, the audience never reaches a deep enough connection with either Joseph or Alex. One simply observes them from a distance while trying to make sense of all the theories being given. When she exhaustively exclaims “my head hurts,” while trying to keep track of all the various components of her dad’s ever-expanding story, the audience feels it as well.
Sinking in the quicksand of information and hypotheses presented by Feldman, the documentary rarely extends the rope that allows the audience to pull themselves up for air. Although Mintz (Portrayal) tries his best to compartmentalize each new revelation, introducing a range of experts from a historian to a private investigator to a handwriting specialist to explain clues like spelling of a name slightly different or the impact of the court cases on Feldman’s reputation, it is difficult to keep track of the various claims that the film touches on.
In attempting to shine a light on Feldman’s sensational story, Gold Bars: Who the F*ck is Uncle Ludwig ultimately leaves the viewer in the dark. Many stones are overturned but few significant nuggets are found. Whether exploring the historical and cultural significance of, it often feels as if the audience is being driving down multiple winding roads that lead back to the same muddy path that left them stranded. While Feldman’s story is an intriguing one, it salacious glitter does not translate into gold.
