Le Tunnel aux pigeons

During his bountiful, adventurous career, Errol Morris has interrogated roboticists, pet cemetery owners, a Holocaust denier, Stephen Hawking, a parrot, the Unabomber’s pen pal and two architects of massively deadly American wars. In talking to David Cornwell, aka the novelist John le Carré, he seems to have discovered a soulmate. Cornwell is a generous storyteller, gifting us tales of his compulsive grifter father and the hypocrisies of British society. A former spy, he deftly explodes any romance of espionage we might have. But that’s not the juiciest part. The two men, each of whom has dedicated decades to hunting the elusive nature of “truth,” seem to bond, and arrive at the same question at the same time: If we can’t know what’s real in the world, how can we know ourselves? The Pigeon Tunnel’s interviews were shot on a set featuring mirrored and skewed expressionist bookshelves. The effect is unsettling, and it is just right. (Telluride Film Festival)