Zero Patience [VHS]
by John Greyson

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Category: VHS Video
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VHS Movie Reviews of Zero Patience [VHS]

Movie Review: Hedwig's Cultural Parent -- From Canada with Love
Summary: 5 Stars

From the director of URINAL, style and visual magic to spare. Plus, the longest sustained note ever held by a human on a soundtrack -- move over Ms. Streisand!

The music is angry, saddening, funny, sexual, and WAY danceable. This is a classic movie musical with a wide variety of musical styles. Think RENT without the whiney artists. Instead you get the unlikely pair of Richard Burton (the man who discovered the source of the Nile, not Mr. Liz Taylor) and Patient Zero (the man purported to be the initial source of HIV in the US).

Beautiful arrangements. Sly lyrics. And there are the singing (...) puppets! How can you miss?

If you love movie musicals, and want to see something every bit as good as Hedwig -- buy the movie AND the CD of Zero Patience. You won't be sorry.

Movie Review: Double meaning in "Zero Patience"
Summary: 5 Stars

For reviewers: when posting reviews please be accurate with your information. John Greyson is a Canadian director from Toronto, not the USA. Normand Fauteaux plays Zero/Ga?tan, not Michel Callen who plays the superb role of Miss HIV.

Movie Review: the politics of containment
Summary: 5 Stars

As reviewers have noted, "Zero Patience" responds to Randy Shilt's "And the Band Played On" (there is also a film of the same title). While these works reveal the deafening silence of the Regan administration in responding to the growing epidemic, "Zero Patience" marks more explicitly the racialization of the global politics of HIV/AIDS.

Greyson plays together a range of genres, using the pleasure of spectacle to tell a story of the politics of misinformation. The story of the exclusions and silences around HIV?AIDS still require telling: this is a world where the myth of external agents of contagion can no longer be sustained. (I have a question here: what is the correlation between hiv rates of transmission and catholocism in colonial contexts? i am not trying to start trouble it is just a question). Where can people who are allergic to latex get condoms?

Zero Patience has particular resonance when we locate hiv/aids within a contemporary global politics which remains racialised; both within western nations, and across the so-called "developed" and "underdeveloped" worlds. At "home" in America the "right" can imagine a threat "out of Africa" (or as "Zero Patience" plays out, via the French Canadian "patient zero") but this isn't going to keep the kids safe. Talk about it.

"Zero Patience" combines the pleasures of "Can't Stop the Music" with the politics of Haraway, and the humour of the fatboy slim "Praise" video. Very cool.

Further reading: Sander Gilman, Douglas Crimp, Emily Martin, Donna Haraway, Kobena Mercer ....

Movie Review: A Frank and Touching Alternative View
Summary: 5 Stars

Intertwined with their story is that of a Canadian schoolteacher and member of the Canadian equivalent of ACT UP caught in a dilemma of loyalty to the activist dogma of greedy pharmaceutical companies and uncaring government officials and a deeper fear that the entire charade of VILLAIN/HERO and VICTIM/VICTIMIZER may be standing in the way of any rational and helpful response to his condition. His story accentuates the Dugas Ghost/Curator story of gradual change and coming to terms with a radically new point of view.

The songs are, for the most part, excellent - with a touch of 30's musical and 50's flambouyance comingled with some biting social commentary. A particular standout is the medley that takes place in the museum as the exhibition animals transform into humans and belt out a ballad of anger and disdain for the projection of human frailities and failures on them.

This film will definitely make you re-think the entire history and historiography of AIDS - as well as challenge your perception of Gaetan Dugas. For as Gaetan himself said when he was alive, "If its sexually transmitted, then someone gave it to me."

Movie Review: Amazing -- a movie musical about AIDS
Summary: 5 Stars

The film is in part a response to Randy Shilts' AIDS journalism and his book "And the Band Played On". The protagonist is none other than Shilts' so-called "Patient Zero", the French-Canadian flight attendant who turned up at the center of the early "contact study" trying to trace the contagion of what was not yet known as AIDS. The story and the songs are about a yearning for love, PWAs' struggle for empowerment, philosophy of history, the need for us all to tell our own stories, the strengths and failings of science, and the politics of AIDS.

This film is not for children, nor for those offended by frank but not graphic depiction of love and sex between men. Some of it may seem a bit dated -- it's several years since I've seen it, and the world has changed a bit. The soundtrack still has some rollicking good songs.

Gay & Lesbian Video

• Genres > Drama
• Musicals & Performing Arts