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Staggering Emotionality
"3 NEEDLES"
Staggering Emotionality
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
I finally got the chance to see one of the most talked about projects this year--"3 Needles". Written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald ("Beefcake", "The Hanging Garden") is sheer staggering emotion. A powerful statement about the worldwide spread of AIDS, it takes us to places where we would never dream of going. Made up of three stories told back to back, it is gloriously filmed and has a terrific cast. Fitzgerald has made this a wonderfully personal movie and he uses such subjectivity in the telling of the stories that the viewer cannot help but feel involved.
We begin our viewing at a public circumcision ceremony somewhere in Africa. As the boys move into manhood, by virtue of the ceremony, they are taught the way to be men by learning the tricks of fighting. The circumcision ceremony is one of the oldest rites known to mankind having roots in the Old Testament from the story of Abraham and Isaac.
We then movie to Asia, to China where we come across Jin Ping (played by Lucy Liu). She is the director of an underground blood bank where the blood is contaminated by the HIV virus. Additionally we are told that Jin Ping is HIV positive and pregnant and works to support her husband who is also carrying the virus. We see her deliver her child alone, with no help from anyone and feel her pain and loneliness.
And then we are off to Canada and meet Denys, an HIV positive porn star. In order to continue making porn films he must maintain a negative HIV status. He supports his family by his career in porn and to assure that he can continue making film, he steals blood from his father which he substitutes as his own. When his mother learns of his positive status, she also hears that AIDS patients are allowed to cash in their life insurance policies early. She infects herself so that she can get the money in order to provide a comfortable life for her herself and her son after her husband dies.
Back in South Africa three nuns have set up a hospice to treat villagers infected with HIV. It is here that we see the boys from the beginning of the film have now become men and are facing a world that is being devastated by AIDS.
These scenarios are beyond our imagination. When Denys mother infected herself for a life insurance payment, I realized how little we know and how much we have not really progressed. The cinema photographer of the film, Tom Harting, has done superior work on this film. It probably would have succeeded as a visual metaphor without words--such is the beauty of the camera work. The acting is simply stupendous, both the stars and the unknowns turn in magnificent performances. I watched the film alone but I am sure that if there had been someone else there they would have remarked that my eyes were as big as saucers. The sheer beauty of the film seems incomprehensible in retrospect but because of the nature of the material I am not yet ready to see it a second time. I know one day I will but first I want to let the initial feelings sink in.
A Visually Breathtaking, Emotionally Staggering Film of Great Importance
3 NEEDLES as written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald (The Hanging Garden, The Wild Dogs, Blood Moon, Beefcake) is a powerful statement about the insidious spread of AIDS throughout the world, taking us to places we the viewers would rarely visit from the news media emphasis on the disease. The film is three stories in three countries told in tandem not unlike the technique so successfully used in BABEL, CRASH, and TRAFFIC. Employing cinematography of enormous talent and a cast of terrific actors, Fitzgerald manages to share his stories with such sensitivity that every viewer will feel involved in the tragedy that is rotting away our globe.
The film opens with a ceremony in Africa (supposedly South Africa) where young boys undergo ritualistic circumcision, learn the fighting tricks of manhood, and move into society as Men. This single portion of the film is intensely beautiful in its non-voyeuristic observation of an ages old ritual, so beautiful to watch that it calls for Pause/Replay! From Africa we go to rural China where Jin Ping (Lucy Liu, speaking Mandarin only) is the very pregnant force who runs an underground blood bank which while serving the donors with some cash also contaminates the population with HIV virus (we discover that Jin Ling is HIV positive, carrying a baby at risk, and supporting her HIV husband). The trials she encounters in her shady business are nothing to the moment of personal anguish when she delivers her baby without assistance in a cornfield.
Moving to Canada we meet Denys (Shawn Ashmore), a porn star who is HIV positive but steals blood from his ill father for his frequent 'tests' required by the porn director to hide his positive status in order to continue making porn movies to support his family. His mother Olive (Stockard Channing) discovers his status, hears about AIDS patients' ability to cash in on life insurance early, and infects herself so that she can take advantage of the early insurance cash to provide a life of comfort in the small time they both now have for herself and her now fatherless son.
And we return to South Africa where three nuns - Sister Clara (Chloë Sevigny), Sister Hilde Francis (Olympia Dukakis) and Sister Mary John (Sandra Oh) - set up a clinic to treat the villagers, finding only that acts of tremendous self-sacrifice can stave off the spread of the gore of AIDS. The Men we have watched in the beginning of the film walk into the life that faces a world crippled by HIV and the contrast is powerful.
3 NEEDLES' cinematographer Tom Harting deserves awards for the sheer magnificence of his images he captures on film, not only the majestic vistas of Africa and China but also the intimate moments such as Jin Ping's birthing. The musical score by Christophe Beck and Trevor Morris manages to find the atmosphere of each of the three stations of the cross Fitzgerald examines. The acting cast, both the gifted well-known actors as well as the smaller roles by unknowns in each location, is magnificent. If the film has a flaw it is in the unfortunate arena of avoiding preaching: watching and hearing the events is so very powerful that words of summation feel superficial and even insulting. But that is a small flaw in a film of wonder. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, December 06
Big Ideas And An Important Message In A Film That Failed To Emotionally Involve Me
"3 Needles" is a well-intentioned, serious-minded film from Canadian filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald. While Fitzgerald has a following from his previous efforts "The Hanging Garden" and "Blood Moon," this is by far his most ambitious project. He has lined up a first rate roster of talent including Stockard Channing, Lucy Lui, Sandra Oh, Olympia Dukakis, Chloe Sevigny and Shawn Ashmore. Telling three stories revolving around the worldwide AIDS epidemic, "3 Needles" was shown on the festival circuit as an interwoven piece (in the style of "Traffic" or "Babel"). However, after middling reviews, it was divided into three separate stories. Released in major cities for Oscar consideration, it was also shown simultaneously as a Showtime premiere.
The first segment, set in China, stars Lucy Lui as a pregnant woman trafficking in the black market blood business. In a small rural village, we see the repercussions as HIV contaminated blood affects the supply. The second segment stars Shawn Ashmore as a Canadian porn star. Needing money, he continues to work in the business even after he has been infected with HIV. Stockard Channing plays his mother with a very unorthodox way of providing for them after he has been exposed as a health risk. In the last third, Olympia Dukakis, Chloe Sevigny, and Sandra Oh play missionaries on assignment to help a hospital in Africa. They struggle to educate the local workers in facts, not superstitions, to help prevent the spread of the virus.
I admire the scope and the intent behind "3 Needles" very much. Obviously made as a "serious" film, I never think it's bad to use the film medium to educate on important matters. However, I felt "3 Needles" always kept me at arm's distance. For a film filled with such tragedy, such horrors--there was something of an emotional disconnect. I did find the stories interesting enough, but sadly--they never moved me. Part of the problem had to be the characters, they were limited in development. I was intrigued by what they were doing (because they make some controversial choices), but we're never allowed to understand the "why." With a little more depth, any one of these stories could have been a far more effective feature film. But, as is, the segments are a bit distant and the characters cryptic.
It doesn't help matters, however, that each sequence ends with a very obvious message. I had admired, at least, that each tale wasn't overtly "preachy"--but then as each came to a conclusion, so came the heavy-handed lesson (often delivered in an unnecessary voice-over by Dukakis). It's almost as if the film didn't trust you to make the necessary conclusion for yourself. There's no doubt that Fitzgerald is a talent, "3 Needles" is a grand stretch for him. But as I was left rather uninvolved by what was intended to be heartrending, this has to be called an interesting failure. I'd still recommend it--but its not the important document of our time that it hopes to be. 3 1/2 stars for good intentions and a great cast. KGHarris, 12/06.
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