'3 Needles' review
Independent filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald presents three intimate portraits of the global AIDS crisis
By Mengly Taing
Published: December 1st, 2006 | 10:25am
Back in 1981 when the HIV virus was first documented in the United States, not many people understood what it was. Its discovery resulted in wrongful misconceptions about who could be affected by the debilitating disease. Now over twenty years since its disclosure, how much has really changed? Actors and actresses may seek coveted roles as spokespersons for a growing number of HIV/AIDS charity campaigns, but does a famous face really spark change and induce global awareness of a disease that has taken more than 25 million lives to date?
3 Needles, written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald, offers more than just a famous face or two. In his ambitious new film, the Canadian filmmaker shares three pivotal stories of people living and coping with AIDS around the world.
The film's predominantly award-winning female cast, which includes Stockard Channing, Lucy Liu, and Chloë Sevigny among others, delivers a poignant performance depicting the emotional impact the global crisis has wreaked on humanity.
The film is a beautiful, visual anthology that takes place in three different parts of the world that hopes to address common myths surrounding the growing pandemic. The film unfolds in three parts. In southern China, Jin Ping, played by Lucy Liu, sets up a questionable mobile blood collection service in a rural farming village that leaves its members overwhelmed by a deadly disease they can't comprehend. In one moving scene, one mother loses a child as another welcomes one into the world.
Across the ocean in urban Montreal, a mother, played by Stockard Channing, finds she must expose herself to the disease to save her already infected son, played by Shawn Ashmore.
And in the place where the AIDS epidemic is at its worst, the film ends on a plantation in South Africa where young missionary Clara, played by Chloë Sevigny, threatens her own salvation in order to save the lives of others after she discovers a child under her care was raped by an infected man in her village. In a last ditch effort to help the workers on the plantation, Clara approaches their overseer with a poignant message that rings true throughout the film: "You're bigger than the law. You're the money."
Three needles, three heartbreaking stories, all triggered by humanity's common desire to survive in a society where money determines who lives and who dies. Although there is no omnipotent panacea for the disease, the film rightfully points to poverty as the root cause for the cultural biases that hinder AIDS education and prevention.
In a world where people like to distinguish the bad guys from the good, one is left without an answer in this film. Rather, they're left with hope. For every bad deed, a good one may be redeemed in the hopes of igniting the volition of conscious viewers who can believe that one person can make a difference, just like the heroes and heroines in the film. Unlike many other films that have tried to address AIDS in their story-lines, this film and its stories do not end on a happy note. Instead, viewers are left with a shocking reality. It's not a film one can watch over and over, but it is a film one can never forget.
3 Needles opens in several major cities on December 1st. For more information about the film and to support its efforts to raise money for AIDS, check out myspace.com/3needles.
Issue #35
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