Premise: A documentary about the AIDS crisis and efforts to combat it.
On a technical level, this is a brilliantly constructed documentary. Sometimes, I watch a documentary where it feels like I’m just watching whenever the filmmaker wanted to turn on the camera or it’ll feels like I’m watching the first clip they found that kind of worked for something. How to Survive a Plague instead feels thoroughly exhaustive. They really poured over years of footage from all over. Talking heads, home video, news coverage. It is wonderfully cut together. More importantly, it feels seamless. I’m always amazed when a documentary can edit together two clips from completely different sources and make them feel like they are in discussion with each other. Topic aside, this was a pleasure to watch. I’m not sure if anyone out there awards documentary film editing, but if they do, this better have won that year.
Topically, I was very pleased by how this was covered. I know some about the ACT Up movement, but I’m far from an expert. This movie does a great job of capturing the temperature at different points over several years. I’m trying to figure out the best way to say this, but I was impressed that the movie was willing to admit where the movement was wrong or short-sighted. It admits that the drugs they were pushing for from the FDA early on ended up not being as useful as they seemed. Many documentaries are so slanted that they never admit to mistakes in the topic. Showing the moment when ACT Up and TAG were at odds went a long way for me. And it does a good job of pointing out that even if those early drugs weren’t actually worth the fuss, the delay in research led to millions of deaths. I don’t know what else to say. More should’ve been done and sooner. How to Survive a Plague tells the story as well as I’ve seen it.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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