I felt compelled to write this review, to - at the least - warn any potential viewers of the dangers within this documentary, especially if they themselves are living with HIV.
The whole 'AIDS Dissident' thing is not new. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, before effective treatment, there was a natural section of people who either denied the existence of the syndrome or denied the causality between HIV and AIDS. After 1996 and the advent of effective treatment combo's, there was a shift to focusing on the drugs and the side-effects of them - which could be quite horrible in themselves - despite keeping people alive.
Sadly, throughout this period there were many people who listened to these denialist's and dissidents, ditched the treatment, and died as a result. Now it's 2017. Treatment is a world away from those early days - most people take 1 pill a day and don't experience any side effects. Life expectancy of someone diagnosed with HIV now and adherent to treatment is the same as someone who is HIV negative. There is no reason for anyone living with the virus not to be on treatment and living a happy, healthy life.
In 2016, Nicole Zwiren thought it a good idea to create this documentary which is quite possibly the most appalling piece of documentary filmmaking I've ever seen. It dredges through all the old dissident claims - presenting them in a completely uncritical manner, mixes archive footage with talking head interviews to mislead the viewer, ignores progress made with the condition and peddles dangerous theories about alternative treatments. Almost EVERYTHING in this documentary is factually incorrect....lets take a chunk of the documentary dedicated to how HIV doesn't meet all four of 'Koch's Postulates' which is designed to acknowledge the existence of an organism. Well, HIV *has* now met all of these criteria so it's a non-issue, yet is reported here as still being the case (remember this is a 2016 documentary!). That's just a drop in the ocean...almost every segment of this film is just factually wrong on every level.
A misleading technique used here often is to put some 'dissident' in front of a legitimate AIDS conference logo to add weight to their frankly mad theories, splice short comments from real doctors telling the truth but immediately followed by contrary voice-over to create the illusion of an alternative scientific view, dragging some anecdotal crackpot claims about mushrooms being able to treat the virus (with a holistic store owner proving this treatment with the first name 'Truth' - I kid you not) and then some excruciating footage of the film-maker challenging genuine experts at an AIDS conference with idiotic questions containing quotes taken out of context in order to illicit a reaction which suits the purposes of the film.
Taking this poorly made documentary at face value it is just standard dissident fare which can be easily dismissed as rubbish. The reason I am angry about this film is that it was created in an era of far more enlightenment when such views are clearly crackpot to anyone with half a brain-cell. One thing that is more prevalent in HIV is the presence of mental health conditions - it's still a condition that carries a great deal of stigma. If a single person who has HIV watches this film and decides to ditch their effective medication, then the filmmaker really does have blood on her hands. I am dismayed that Ed Asner also put his voice and name with this piece of anti-scientific, misleading, dangerous propaganda. Thankfully the band of nut job dissidents are slowly dying out (many from the condition they claim won't kill you), but in the meantime the world could do without filmmakers giving these dangerous people a platform and leading to unnecessary suffering and death.
My advice to anyone who is thinking of watching this film is - don't. It's a horrible example of propaganda documentary making at it's worst, and in an era where we are seeing some truly great documentaries being created, we should not encourage such poor examples to be given credence.
4 out of 5 found this helpful