Zero Patience [1993]

Customer Reviews:

"He led such a promiscuous lifestyle!".......2005-09-15

Cheaply made, looking as though it has been cobbled together at a moments notice, with forgettable songs, and equality forgettable musical numbers, one might be tempted to discount Patience Zero is an irrelevance, a bad movie. However, if one reads between the lines, there's an amazing amount of quite profound information in this film as arty Canadian filmmaker, John Greyson examines a particularly forceful urban myth about the origin of Aids in North America.

Made in 1993 and now finally released on DVD, there is much about Patience Zero that seems dated. HIV drugs are now widely available in the U.S, people are longer dropping dead from AIDS, and the debilitating diseases that come with AIDS are largely a thing of the past. But although emblematic of an era, the movie still asks some probing and thought-provoking questions about the source of this terrible virus.

As the ghost of the French-Canadian flight attendant called Patient Zero (Normand Fauteux) wanders the city, the only person who can see him is the Victorian explorer/sexologist Sir Richard Burton (John Robinson). Together they plan a museum exhibition on the origins of AIDS in the Museum of Natural History in Toronto in order to debunk some of the myths of the disease.

As Sir Richard starts to collect his museum pieces, several activists and Aids patients swirl around the edges trying to clarify the exhibition's focus. Burton also explores the gay subculture, videoing men in saunas, and interviewing Patient Zero's mother, the doctor who first diagnosed him, along with various members of the Act-up community. Burton's initial motives are mercenary, but his encounters change his views on quite a number of things, including his own sexuality, as he eventually falls in love with the ghost.

Amongst all the corny musical numbers and tawdry songs, there's a rather well-told, touching subplot involving a teacher of elementary students (Ricardo Keens-Douglas) who is going blind as a result of AIDS complications. But by enlarge; Patience Zero, while an admirable effort, is dramatically bankrupt. The script lacks coherence and intelligence, and the acting is somewhat cheesy and silly, although Robinson is sexy and likable as Burton.

The film darts all over the place, and as such it's both informative and bewildering. Scenes are filled with quirky references to the politics of the time, such as the lack of drug funding, along with references to issues of denial, abandonment, fear, corporate greed, misinformation, and activism. It also takes a well-aimed jab at medical orthodoxy, which was quick to embrace unproven facts.

The choreography in the musical numbers is for the most part of simplistic and clunky, but endearing, and some of the songs have a dangerously absurd sense of humour and take-no-prisoners approach even if they do come across as enormously silly. Mike Leonard September 05.

A great musical !.......2002-10-29

"A musical about AIDS" : it sounds a bit strange, even awkward for a subtitle, but that's what it is. It tells about the first guy who is said to have been infected by this sadly famous virus. Now you think it's going to be namby-pamby or dramatic or something like that ? You're wrong. It's a beautiful tale of love, lust and friendship. Of course, it's a movie, it's fictional, but the musical aspect transforms the movie. The songs are great and they'll get in your mind very quickly.

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