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Almost all the pieces viewers have to know in regards to the mortal penalties of the fentanyl epidemic portrayed in Colin Askey’s new Vancouver-set documentary “Love in the Time of Fentanyl” is contained in a single change between two customers. One man talks about how coming off heroin was laborious however manageable, primarily Netflix and chilling in his condominium for per week—however detoxing from fentanyl? That led to the emergency room. Given that and the unfold of fentanyl all through town’s illicit drug provide, it’s simpler to know the argument for the safe-injection web site which the movie paperwork. At the identical time, seeing that web site as something however a Band-Aid on a grievous wound is difficult.
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Askey’s Independent Lens-bound movie is a humane, loving, and sorrowfully impassioned portrait of the individuals who employees the Overdose Prevention Society (OPS) in Vancouver’s addiction-riddled Downtown Eastside neighborhood. Following a fast preamble in regards to the wave of overdose deaths sweeping town and the institution of OPS with none official approval, the movie slides into an natural fly-on-the-wall model that appears to mirror Askey’s time spent within the neighborhood. He tracks a number of of the individuals who work at OPS, largely former or present addicts. Their routine seems not dissimilar to many social staff’—a mixture of humanitarian and janitorial duties—however with an additional layer of darkness courtesy of the looming specter of dying.
Though Askey has made a message movie, it’s strongest in portraying the individuals caught within the epidemic. The OPS staff are a delicate but vivacious bunch, their mission-driven want to assist spiked with the antiauthority aesthetic and mentality that comes from lots of them being outcasts themselves. Ronnie, a soft-spoken however authoritative chief with an Alan Moore beard and vibe of a person who has been by means of the wars however feels no have to burden others together with his previous, comes throughout as a bulwark towards the location’s endemic chaos. While he and Trey, a punk-ish artist who manages his grief by means of graffiti memorials to the lifeless, seem surprisingly well-balanced, different employees are working on extra of a knife’s edge. One of essentially the most affecting employees members is Dana, a chipper and sweet-natured spirit with an ongoing behavior; in one of many movie’s hardest-to-watch moments, he whistles the “Andy Griffith Show” theme whereas injecting himself within the neck, blood leaking down.
As has been seen in different overdose epidemic documentaries—PBS’ 2017 “America Addicted” is a good instance—a function of the current ravages of opioid habit has not been the acquainted battle (weaning addicts off their behavior to allow them to return to society) however a extra terrifyingly fraught one (protecting addicts from dying). That state of emergency lies behind all the pieces in “Love in the Time of Fentanyl,” whose topics regularly discuss of the “crisis” afflicting their group. It can be what seems to drive most of them to hold out the seemingly hopeless work of working a protected injection web site with clear needles (to keep away from an infection) and skilled staffers with Narcan (to deliver individuals again after overdosing, a number of cases of which Askey captures). It’s a nightmarish state of affairs for the staffers, like paramedics stationed at a hairpin curve the place they look forward to a driver to crash. Day after day, addicts grateful for a clear, quiet, protected place to inject nod out or must be revived with Narcan; the latter occurs so continuously that Ronnie good points the nickname “Narcan Jesus.”
That sense of inevitability makes Askey’s movie reasonable—in addition to being extra prone to trigger deadly overdoses, fentanyl is much stronger than different opioids and a lot more durable to kick—but additionally restricted in scope. Despite the mentions of a disaster, and an advocacy march demanding higher remedy choices, the movie doesn’t tie its central message (protecting addicts from dying on the street) to a deeper examination of the disaster. Though OPS is outwardly a rogue operation, Askey doesn’t delve into any of the challenges it faces from its opponents. In the worthy curiosity of displaying help for these swept up in habit, the movie fails to grapple with attendant points (notably getting individuals into remedy, which is barely talked about) and turns into extra of an activist echo chamber.
It will not be the documentary’s obligation to supply solutions to an issue for which few specialists have a consensus answer. But the movie’s lack of a forward-looking imaginative and prescient in the end makes an already bleak state of affairs seem much more dire. [B]
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