The documentaries of Errol Morris have always dealt, to some degree of another, with self-delusion, from “The Thin Blue Line,” which challenged the certitude of law enforcement types about catching the man who’d killed a cop, to “Tabloid,” about a woman who kidnapped a man she was sure was in love with her. But his most recent work has involved not only individuals, but the national self-deception involved in assuring ourselves of our rectitude in war.

That broader issue was certainly involved in “Standing Operating Procedure,” which traced the reality of the action of Americans at Abu Ghraib in a way that suggested we are all complicit in their activities, however much we (like the Bush Administration) tried to heap the blame on the guards alone. And it was certainly present in “The Fog of War,” in which former Defense chief Robert McNamara addressed his own responsibility in the debacle of Vietnam and the lessons that might be learned from that misadventure. (That film won an Oscar, of course.)

On the surface “The Unknown Known,” which presents a series of excerpts with former Bush Administration Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embellished with archival autobiographical material, characteristically haunting imagery (mostly roiling waves or reference to Rumsfeld’s “snowflakes,” his many memos) and insistent music (this time by Danny Elfman), is merely a sort of companion piece to “The Fog of War.” Rumsfeld sits seated before Morris’ patented “interrotron” camera, which uses mirrors to allow him to be filmed looking directly at the audience while maintaining eye contact with the filmmaker. And he responds to questions, just as McNamara did. But the resultant portrait is very dissimilar. McNamara was reflective, regretful, apologetic. By contrast Rumsfeld is pugnacious, averse to self-doubt or even self-examination—and unwilling to admit even contradictions in the historical record.

Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that McNamara was chronologically much more removed from the catastrophic events he had been instrumental in creating, or in the two men’s varied backgrounds. McNamara was trained as a mathematician and statistical analyst, and he brings the rigor associated with those skills to looking back on his life. Rumsfeld, by contrast, is homo politicus, who began his career as a congressional staffer before becoming a young congressman from Illinois in the 1960s. During the Nixon administration he served in a variety of appointed posts before becoming Gerald Ford’s chief of staff and Defense Secretary. After Ford’s defeat in 1976, Rumsfeld entered the private sector, but under Ronald Reagan he served as a special presidential envoy to the Middle East (famously visiting at one point with Saddam Hussein), as well as in other semi-official capacities. But he appears to have learned very few lessons from those responsibilities; after George W. Bush was elected in 2000, Rumsfeld returned, at the suggestion of his old friend Dick Cheney, as Secretary of Defense, only to preside over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq until Bush replaced him in 2006.

Throughout his discussion of his life, Rumsfeld maintains an attitude of coolly cheerful denial of any mistakes or regrets. Even when he alludes to old grudges—like what sounds very much like turf wars he engaged in with George H.W. Bush during the Ford years and Condoleeza Rice in those of the second Bush—he does so with the same semi-sarcastic grin he brings to his responses to questions about the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” His humanity can be glimpsed in his reminiscences of proposing to his wife and his reactions to 9/11 and Abu Ghraib, but even in these instances his defensive crouch is one designed to reject any hint of culpability while trumpeting his own sense of duty (as in his offers to resign over Abu Ghraib). When confronted by the infamous “torture memos” from the Department of Justice, he actually claims never to have read them. He’s no lawyer, he argues; what could he have brought to the table? When asked about the spurious Iraqi WMDs, he retreats into his famous dictum that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence—and suggests that Colin Powell knew exactly what he was about in his infamous speech before the U.N. When challenged about suggesting that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, he both denies it and then covers himself with a joke about generalizations.

What emerges in “The Unknown Known” is a portrait of a man who’s not so much opaque as impervious—one so convinced that he’s right that nothing can dissuade him from what he believes; it’s literally impossible for him to seriously consider any alternative, even in hindsight. Rumsfeld comes across as a smugly smiling carnivore who’s happy to figuratively chalk up points against his interlocutor just as he joyously eviscerated—at least in his own mind—any journalist who had the temerity to ask him a challenging question during his Pentagon press briefings. Even when asked why he agreed to be interviewed by Morris, he sidesteps the question—a political creature to the very end. He seems to think that any time in the limelight will be beneficial, even though he must know that Morris will have the final say through his well-honed editing skills.

Rumsfeld ultimately comes across as a man who’s frightening in his utter inability to reflect on events in which he played a significant, if not totally determinative, role as well as their destructive impact upon the country and the globe—another portrait in Morris’ extraordinary gallery of self-deluding subjects, one more famous than the others.

There’s a larky, loopy vibe reminiscent of the early French New Wave in much of Roger Michell’s “Le Week-End,” an effect accentuated by the simple fact that the film is set in Paris and boasts a jaunty Gallic score by Jeremy Sams. But it isn’t a carefree romp about reckless young lovers, but rather an often intense and poignant comedy-drama about a pair of sixty-year old Brits, a married couple who’ve come to the City of Lights, where they’d honeymooned, for their thirtieth anniversary, carrying more emotional baggage than luggage.

The tension between Meg Burrows (Lindsay Duncan) and her husband Nick (Jim Broadbent) is evident in the first scene, as they travel by train to France, with him slightly befuddled and her more matter-of-fact. And it explodes for the first time when they reach their hotel, a decidedly cramped establishment frugal Nick has selected but Meg refuses to stay in. After insisting on a long taxicab ride to see the sights, she decamps at a far more elegant alternative, where they take the only accommodation available—a large suite that’s obviously beyond their means.

From here they film follows them as they go about the city, revealing along the way their past grievances and present secrets. Meg, unhappy in her teaching job, is standoffish toward Nick’s romantic advances and sometimes treats him with positive disdain, nursing old wounds that will be explained in due course. Meanwhile Nick keeps taking calls from their slacker son, who recently moved out of their house with his wife and child, but now is looking to return, much to Meg’s distress. He’s also concealing the fact that he’s being forced to resign his position at a red-brick university because of a complaint by a female student about an off-the-cuff remark he made to her.

And yet the relationship has a strong element of affection as well as estrangement, as well as comic moments to balance the more serious ones. The strapped couple enjoy fine dining, but have to skip out on the bill. (They’ll eventually try to run out on their hotel bill, too.) In fact, it’s while they’re kissing on the street that they encounter Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), a gregarious old classmate of Nick’s who’s enjoyed the sort of success that’s eluded Burrows and invites them over to a soiree that he and his pretty young trophy wife Eve (Judith Davis) are throwing that evening.

That gathering serves as a critical moment for both Meg and Nick. They both have encounters that confront them with hard choices. She considers going off with a guest, a man who invites her out for a drink. And he bares his soul not only in a conversation with Michael (Olly Alexander), Morgan’s neglected son by his first marriage who’s visiting from America, but in a response to a laudatory dinner toast that Morgan offers to him. His confession of his weakness, professional failure and self-loathing shocks the other guests but ironically rekindles Meg’s feelings for him.

In less capable hands Hanif Kureishi’s subtle, sophisticated script, with its carefully-wrought balance between comedy, farce, restrained drama and powerful moments, could have been badly bungled. But here it’s played out to remarkable effect. Michell’s direction is both poised and limber, made all the more impressive by Nathalie Durand’s supple camerawork and Kristina Hetherington’s crisp editing, which gives the montages zest.

And the performances are superb. Duncan brings sternness to Meg without losing the affection that remains under the crusty exterior, but it’s Broadbent who really excels here. He’s an actor who’s never disappointed, even in inferior material, but in this case he has superior writing to work with, and he seizes upon it with obvious relish; it’s a great performance. But one shouldn’t overlook the genial pizzazz that Goldblum brings to the role of the loquacious Morgan, who evinces a honestly self-deprecatory good nature even as he rhapsodizes about the lovely young wife he knows will eventually tire of him and remains obstinately oblivious to the obvious strains in the Burrows family—nor the quietly moving turn by Anderson as his troubled son.

It’s appropriate that “Le Week-End” ends with an impromptu dance, for the entire film has been like a remarkable bit of cinematic terpsichore, covering the whole range of human emotion just as life—or marriage—does. And at the close it actually leaves you wanting more, because it’s created characters so rich and interesting—and so well played—that you want to enjoy their company even longer. That’s something you can’t say about most movies.