 Silverlake Life: The View From Here (1993) Like that film, Joslin's return to autobiographical filmmaking was aired on PBS, and this time it had the difficult and regrettable aim of humanizing people suffering with AIDS at a time when the epidemic, though years in the public consciousness, was still widely misunderstood. It's a powerful document, one that is thought-provoking and challenging but also gripping and enjoyable to watch in ways you wouldn't expect a film to be that is dealing with two people dying. Joslin and his partner, Mark Massi, filmed themselves in their daily lives as a means of presenting AIDS as a reality attached to two real people – not a concession to the gay community, of course, but to middle America, a bold effort. Massi and Joslin are clearly camera-conscious, both playing to the camera in various ways, but this is actually a strength of the film as it lightly acknowledges the impossibility to film reality as it is off-camera. In many places you get the distinct impression that they are able to articulate certain things for the camera in ways that would seem much less profound off-screen. But even so, what emerges is still a very brave and honest self-portrait of a couple in crisis. Their love is obvious and sustaining, even as AIDS tears down their health. The majority of the film focuses on Tom and Mark, with additional scenes bringing in Tom's family and some of the couple's friends. Tom, whose attitude after learning his diagnosis is to essentially view it as a death sentence, becomes very sick earlier than Mark, who seems more determined to do all he can to fight it. Each has his petty moments (one funny and poignant scene has an exhausted Joslin filming himself bitching about Mark's apparent insensitivity in running errands all day and leaving him in the car to wait) but these are really remarkable people, and really inspiring to watch, actually. The sweetness of their relationship is depicted in little things, in the daily minutiae of their days together, and it's these same things that bring home the point that the struggle with AIDS renders so many things that we take for granted all but insurmountable, from separating plastic baskets at the grocery store to going out for pizza or a walk in the botanic garden. Doctors visits, therapy sessions, and massage sessions are depicted, with no punches pulled, and you see the progression of the illness as it ravages both men's bodies. KS lesions blanket their skin, their frustration obvious as they deal with adhering to the regimen of medicine as well as the paranoia of noticing changes in the disease – knowing that changes can signify time running out in the fight. They find a great purposefulness in creating the film itself, as a personal document but also as a political act on behalf of gay people and people suffering from the disease. One scene has the couple at a resort where they are in a public pool, and are asked politely to put shirts on or return to their private section, so the KS doesn't freak out any of the other guests. Massi flashes his lesions proudly at the camera and says "I'm being political." It's almost just a tossed-off aside, but it has a lot to do with what the movie itself is all about. As Tom goes downhill, the movie grows increasingly and necessarily somber, and his death is filmed with grim honesty – it's a genuinely harrowing progression during the sequence where you see Tom, scene by scene, fading away and finally dying. "Harrowing" is used by so many film and music critics to describe stuff like a PJ Harvey album, that seeing Silverlake Life is a natural corrective for people who overuse words like that. This is a harrowing document, but also a beautiful one. On one level it's a love story where the complication is AIDS, on a deeper level it's a film which acknowledges its own existence as a political act. More than Philadelphia (wait, let me rephrase that: FAR more than Philadelphia) or any other Hollywood concoction (Jay Mohr's turn as an AIDS patient in Playing By Heart is made all the more laughable when you've seen Silverlake Life), this film puts a face on the AIDS epidemic. Despite changes in AIDS treatment (and what AIDS means to people now being diagnosed) that have occurred since the movie was made, it remains a vitally important film in understanding AIDS and the gay community as a whole. Watching it for the second time recently, I was struck by how well-constructed the film is, hardly a random "Real World" style verite type of thing, but a real film with lots of visual motifs and running themes. Though shot on video, there is a great sense of organization to it, credited to Peter Friedman, who completed the film after Tom's death (Mark died six months after Tom). One other thing I enjoyed the second time through was a scene in a record store full of CD longboxes. Although it was interesting and amusing just to see that preserved (a CD-era development that is already obsolete), it seemed almost purposely included to attach a sense of optimism to the movie, to place it in a particular place and time that is very concrete and soon to be passed by. Sadly that's not the case, many years later, although undeniable advances have been made. Undoubtedly Silverlake Life will be frighteningly relevant to viewers for many more years.
Review by Tom Trick |