This documentary, about a man who is HIV positive but refuses to take antiretrovirals, pissed me off a little. While I can understand his protesting the unfair distribution of medicines to the people of South Africa, and the world for that matter, I feel that taking the medicine would have allowed him to be more proactive. That is, he could have died at any point from some simple cold or flu. In the documentary he succumbs to illness brought on by a weakened immune system more than once.
Moreover, the strange monologues he had during cut scenes were lost on me I'm not really sure what was going on there. Was he explaining how he got HIV or just explaining how he knew he was homosexual? I have no idea however, they were graphic and somewhat juxtaposed to the rest of the documentary.
I found a lot of parallels between him and Gandhi in that he was protesting what he did not believe in by making a martyr of himself. It's very evocative, or even provocative, but I suppose it's just not my style of protest. To me it's kind of like saying hey "I won't take the drugs" or "I won't eat" but because I'm famous and have notoriety everyone will pay attention to me and something will get done. While it worked for the most part in both cases, people were still dying and continued to die of the things both Achmat and Gandhi were protesting.
I was also a bit confused as to who was to blame for the antiretrovirals not being distributed. Whether it was the government that was keeping the drugs from the people of South Africa. Or it was the pharmaceutical companies making them too expensive, which I know is true.
When I lived in New Hampshire my little brother befriended a boy named Jackson. I knew Jackson's older brother. One day I went over their house and realized that Jackson was obviously adopted. I found out Jackson was from Haiti and had been homeless for most of his life. Jackson might have been all of six or seven years old at the time I met him. He was also HIV positive and the cocktail, as it called, of drugs they had to give him everyday was astonishing.
I did enjoy his choreography whilst singing It's Raining Men, by the Weather Girls.
I was also confused with the strange almost poetic readings that popped up randomly within the documentary. I didn't know if he was telling us about his past or what. I think it detracted from the documentary, because it distracted the viewers and took away from the message.
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