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PLOT: Three parallel stories only loosely connected at the end delve into the horrors of AIDS in an intensely personal fashion in Canada, South Africa and China.
The spectre of AIDS has never been treated on film with the bravado, the scope and the ambition of Canadian Thom Fitzgerald's drama 3 Needles.
That is not to say it is a completely successful film. But the hopes and insights hardwired into the complex stories on screen make it impossible to ignore.
The film's strength and weakness is that it is constructed of three parallel journeys, which only loosely, and surprisingly, become connected at the end in Olympia Dukakis' narration. It would have been better if we knew what her unique contribution was at the beginning, so she could present the film as individual chapters in the human saga.
The three sagas take place in the countryside of South Africa, in a village in China and in downtown Montreal. In each case, AIDS is critical. The film, shot on authentic locations, plays in English as well as in Afrikaans, Xhosa, Mandarin and French with subtitles.
In South Africa, Canadian nuns see how superstition and medical ignorance contribute to the spread of the disease, with one nun taking a unique sexual route to create change. In China, exploitation by a blood-collector leads to suspicions that she may be causing a plague. In Canada, a young Montreal man hides his positive test results and continues to live a double life as a porn star.
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The structure that writer-director Fitzgerald has imposed upon himself is impossibly daunting. It is difficult to jump-cut quickly from one story to another because each is lyrical in its narrative flow. So you spend a long time with one story at the expense of the other two. The Montreal chapter, in particular, suffers enormously from the disconnect.
But there is no doubting Fitzgerald's epic intentions and the value of the overall enterprise. There are also some marvellous sequences, especially Chloe Sevigny as a nun in Africa and Lucy Liu as blood harvester in China.
The storylines are all tragic. Yet there is optimism in the piece, despite the shameful truths told, because Fitzgerald is looking into the human condition with an enquiring mind and not just a judgmental eye.
As a filmmaker, he has always been comfortable with ambiguity. His marvellous debut, The Hanging Garden, is an excellent example, so much so that the entire film can be "read" as reality or as an elaborate illusion. In 3 Needles, the ambiguity is buried in the morality of individual people's decision-making.
There are many fine performances here besides those of Liu and the shockingly good Sevigny. Tanabadee Chokpikultong is effective as the Chinese peasant who loses his family. But not all of the good actors are in the service of greatness. Channing is wasted in a bravura turn as Shawn Ashmore's mother because the Montreal segment meanders.
Taken as a whole, however, 3 Needles is a triumph -- of ambitious filmmaking on a limited budget, of visual beauty in the face of ugly human behaviour, and of socially active storytelling that refuses to take the sentimental path.
BOTTOM LINE: While fraught with structural problems because it over-reaches, Thom Fitzgerald's film is still a wonder in terms of ambition and social relevance.
(This film is rated 14-A)