Doc Review: How to Survive a Plague

This film is a fascinating look at a struggle I admittedly knew very little about.  In the 80's a group called Act Up emerged as a force to be reckoned with.  Their mission: to increase funding and improve research methods for AIDS medications. The main character of "How to Survive a Plague" is Peter Staley, a gay man who contracted HIV in 1987 and was given just a couple years to live.  What ensues is a heroic, entertaining battle to pressure the US government health bureaucracy, including the FDA, into action.  This is no easy task.

The coalition Act Up, which eventually splinters into another group called TAG (Treatment Action Group), uses some of the most brilliant and creative civil disobedience methods to get their message out.  They disrupt a church service by lying down in the entrance.  They heckle Bill Clinton as he is campaigning for president.  They even wrapped a giant condom on Jesse Helms house.

Peter Staley

Some of their tactics had me cracking up in the theater.  Other tactics left me in tears.  Watching the group spread the ashes of their loved ones on the White House lawn was a particularly gut wrenching moment.  This film takes the audience through the range of emotions Act Up must have experienced exponentially greater in their uphill, deadly battle to get Aids medications to the general public.  Some of them lived to see their victory.  Many were not so fortunate.

Director David France does an extraordinary job of editing together a film that uses only original cinema verite footage.  Somehow he got through over 700 hours of stock footage to make this 2 hour cut.  Luckily, the technology gods graced us with a recording tool that did the job of documenting this era in history. Remember Handicams from the early 1980's?  That's what this documentary was made with. Without them, we wouldnt have such an intimate portrait of a group that changed history.  Act Up not only survived the plague, they helped bring it to its knees.