From This Week In Texas
3 Needles
By Duane Simolke
Feb 10, 2007
The film’s narrator, and one of its stars, is Olympia
Dukakis. Loved for her roles in hit films such as Steel Magnolias and
Moonstruck, Dukakis has also appeared in many gay-themed features, such
as Jeffrey, Tales of the City, and one of Fitzgerald’s previous films,
The Event. She always charms viewers with natural, seemingly effortless
performances, but here she plays one of her more dramatic, impassioned
roles. As Sister Hilde, she not only tells the different stories in the
film, but also tries to fight HIV in Africa.
3 Needles actually starts in South Africa, using it as a framework for
the different stories. However, we only hear Sister Hilde’s voice at
this time. Like the other stories, this one involves rituals. In this
case, the ritual takes tribal boys into manhood, with rites of
circumcision. A bloodied knife on the ground provides stark contrast to
the splendor that surrounds the young men.
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| Olympia Dukakis and Chloë Sevigny |
In preparation for the film, Fitzgerald traveled South Africa, trading
stories with tribal elders while learning about the lives of South
African people and how AIDS has impacted those lives. His obvious
concern and admiration comes through on the screen as we follow the
young men along their painful journey into manhood.
Though that part of the movie ends quickly, it introduces us to the
magnificent work that cinematographer Thomas M. Harting provides
throughout the film. Harting, a long-time collaborator with Fitzgerald,
received the Atlantic Film Festival’s 2005 Best Cinematography Award
for 3 Needles. While this movie might occasionally be hard to follow,
and some of its violent scenes hard to watch, Harting makes every frame
artistic. Shot in a variety of languages, and sometimes relying on no
words at all, this movie puts much of its burden on the imagery;
Harting brings that imagery to life.
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| Lucy Liu |
Gorgeous images among pain also typify the next story, in which a
pregnant woman (Lucy Liu) traffics black market blood, ignorantly
spreading HIV throughout entire villages in China. With no
understanding—not even a word—for the virus, she simply wants to
support her family. Liu’s bright red clothes and pretty face epitomize
the movie’s contrast of beauty in the midst of ugliness. She still
manages to blend into the world of this story.
Audiences know Liu for her comical work in TV’s Ally MacBeal, her
musical turn in Chicago, and her string of tongue-in-cheek action films
like Charlie’s Angels, Shanghai Noon, Kill Bill, and Payback. Here she
offers a quiet, vulnerable performance.
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| Shawn Ashmore |
Shawn Ashmore and Stockard Channing also might surprise
some of their fans. Ashmore played Ged in the Earthsea miniseries, Ice
Man in the X-Men movies, and Terry Fox in the TV movie Terry. Here he
plays a porn star, stealing blood to pass his HIV test, so he can
support himself and his parents. He needs a negative test result to
keep making more porn films, but he gives HIV to his costars. Ashmore’s
good looks and sometimes ambiguous expressions make him convincing as
someone who could incite so much trust and get away with anything.
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| Stockard Channing |
As Olive, the mother of Ashmore’s character, multiple Emmy,
SAG, and Tony award nominee Stockard Channing takes even more extreme
measures to support her family. While Betty Rizo (Channing’s character
in Grease) never was Sandra Dee, even she would blush after seeing what
Olive does, and why she does it. Viewers who loved Channing in Grease,
Out of Practice, The West Wing, Six Degrees of Separation, or The
Matthew Shepard Story might barely recognize her. In 3 Needles, she
makes her character look desperate and fatigued, turning an unlikely
storyline into a moving tragedy.
The film’s ending story brings us back to South Africa, and provides
glimpses of the young men from the first story. It also brings back
some of the film’s most breathtaking scenery, contrasted with the
film’s most violent and tragic scenes. Fitzgerald had read about South
African tribesmen raping young virgin girls, in the folk belief that
the virgins could cure AIDS. That atrocity makes its way into the
conclusive tale.
When we finally see Olympia Dukakis, instead of just hearing her voice,
she is one of three nuns, each trying urgently to help the AIDS-ravaged
people of South Africa. Two impressive actresses join her as the other
nuns: famed Canadian star Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy, Arliss, The
Princess Diaries, Under the Tuscan Sun, The Night Listener, etc.) and
independent film favorite Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don’t Cry, Party Monster,
Kids, The Last Days of Disco, If These Walls Could Talk 2, etc.).
The nuns meet resistance from the people they want to help and
bureaucracy from all around. The harder they work, the more they
suffer. Ultimately, their faith drives them to keep making whatever
difference they can.
Overall, Fitzgerald offers a visually and emotionally stunning work. It
requires careful attention and demands further thought. Some viewers
might dislike its structure or its scope; still, few viewers could
leave it without thinking more about how AIDS has changed the world, or
what those changes mean for humanity.
Buy the movie at Wolfe
Video.
Duane Simolke, author, Degranon: A
Science Fiction Adventure; editor
and co-author of the fund-raiser The Acorn Gathering: Writers Uniting
Against Cancer.
DuaneSimolke.Com
© This Week In Texas
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