In recent years, films like Traffic, Syriana and
others have tried to meld narrative ensemble conventions with the burgeoning
sense and social consciousness of activist filmmaking most robustly found in a
new wave of documentaries from liberal filmmakers like Robert Greenwald,
Michael Moore and the like. Heartening
in effort if not fully successful in implementation, then, is The Hanging Garden writer-director Thom Fitzgerald’s sprawling
anthology 3 Needles. A trio of discrete stories that span
on the AIDS crisis, and ask why mankind has not bonded together more
tenaciously and durably against this common scourge.
First, in
pregnant Jin Ping (Lucy Liu, above) sets up a mobile, black market blood collection
service in a tiny fishing village, paying residents $5 for their donations.
When rice farmer Tong Sam (Tanabadee Chokpikultong), resentful of his neighbor’s
financial gains yet barred from selling his own blood because he has the flu,
lies about his daughter’s age in order that she can sell blood and fund
improvements to their family’s humble farm, it sets off a chain reaction of
events.
Denys (X-Men‘s Shawn Ashmore) is a
porn actor hiding his HIV positive status in order to continue working and
supporting his ailing, terminally ill father and mother Olive (Stockard Channing).
When his father dies and Denys’ secret comes out of the closet, Olive herself
goes to extreme lengths to provide for the family’s future.
(indie mainstay Chloë Sevigny) is a young Catholic nun driven, along with
Sister Hilda (Olympia Dukakis) and Sister Mary John (Sandra Oh), to prevent the
spread of HIV in the region and convert as many of the rapidly dying African
population as she can. In doing so, Clara makes a desperate sexual bargain with
corrupt plantation owner Hallyday (Ian Roberts) to help more immediately secure
all sorts of necessary improvements in equipment, facility and sanitation.
of footage and reinstating a triptych structure to the film from its 2005
Toronto Film Festival cut, 3
Needles probably tops out with its initial entry, which features an
impressively subdued and nuanced performance from Liu. The segment also best
evidences Fitzgerald’s keen eye for detail and exhaustive sense of research. The Canadian offering, on the other hand, surprisingly
dips a bit into darkly comedic terrain, occasionally with nice effect, scene to
scene. In the end, though, when a former partner spits at Denys, “You killed me
for $800,” it doesn’t comfortably tonally jibe with much of what we’ve seen.
African segment, meanwhile, is at times a bit staid, but delves into the
interesting custom of virginal rape as a “folk cure” for HIV and AIDS, which is
apparently quite a problem in some cultures. If this inquiry were married to a
bit more natural and noteworthy narrative strand — and just off the top of my
head, I can think of a few — it would be better and more inherently compelling.
As is, reach exceeds grasp, and the symbolic intertwining of sex and disease,
power and powerlessness, comes across as one metaphor too many. More ludicrously
closed minds might also potentially misread this as a condemnation of Catholic church
involvement in
Thomas Harting, who has a real touch with the film’s wide-open exteriors, each portion
of 3 Needles opens with a narration that’s equal parts Desperate Housewives and sermonizing
middle school scholastic filmstrip, which is perhaps appropriate. A variety of
far-flung and long-lasting travels informed Fitzgerald’s crafting of the
screenplay (obviously quite well), and his characters are nicely sketched. Still,
while characters are given wide berth and scenes plenty of room to breathe, much
material feels extraneous. With more clearly delineated motivations and streamlined
stories, this project would work much better. As is, it’s a psalm, to be sure,
but it doesn’t truly sing.
include the theatrical trailer and TV advertising for the film, a photo gallery
and a collection of deleted scenes. Informative mini-documentaries China AIDS Initiative (with Magic Johnson and Yao Ming) and House on Fire: AIDS in America,
meanwhile, rightly point up the global nature of this crisis, but in
calm-headed, even-keeled fashion. Each aims to inform, not inflame, and they
succeed. One point of quiet contention, though: a more global offering of subtitles. C (Movie) B+ (Disc)