ONE FOOT ON THE BANANA PEEL, THE OTHER FOOT IN THE GRAVE
A film review by Max Hoffmann
Copyright 1994 Max Hoffmann
Viewed at the San Francisco Film Festival May 4, 1994
USA 1994, 85 min. Directors: Juan Botas, Lucas Platt Producer: Jonathan Demme, Peter Saraf, Joanne Howard Camera Victoria Leacock, Juan Botas Editor: Lucas Platt Print Clinica Estitico
Scale 0-10 (10 = highest): doesn't apply
Seldom does a film so effect you, through its naked self-honesty, that the audience's urban cocoon of indifference and separation is completely stripped away... With ONE FOOT, it was to the point that after viewing the film in the Kabuki's coffee bar, I had three total strangers come up separately and say, "Excuse me, but I saw you in the audience, can I join you and talk about that film? I can't go home ... not just yet...."
Each member of the audience briefly reached the point of unafraid self-revelation that had filled the screen for 85 minutes. There is no rating or recommendation that is worthy of this work. Each viewer will have his or her own unforgettable connection with the cast, and the creators.
In 1992, Juan Botas related to friends Jonathan Demme and Joanne Howard his experiences (mostly life affirming) of his daily visits to the "Dolly Madison" room of a Greenwich Village clinic (where he was receiving IV medication to battle AIDS.) At Demme's prompting, Botas purchased a Hi-8 video camera ... and recorded his daily ordeal, with himself on camera as well. Demme's involvement as producer in this project should more than make up for any resentment over his tepid treatment of a gay relationship in PHILADELPHIA. ONE FOOT completely collapses the distance between any viewer and this pandemic by revealing the patients' humanity to such an extent that unwelcomed self-recognition will descend over many a viewer. If silence equals death, this film is about as far from silence as you can get!
Botas was a gifted visual artist. Victoria Leacock's camera often captures close-ups of him creating Matisse like pastels while waiting for his treatment to end. With over half a dozen fellow patients and the doctor's staff, an intimate and life-affirming extended family is revealed. These are men who have nothing left to lose, and no motive for censoring their speech or opinions. Nakedly honest assessments of ex-wives, family and children (some of whom refuse to see them) are shared with the camera and the audience. Frustration over family denial that refuses to let them make their wishes known for proper burial or estate settlement are revealed. Thru it all, again and again we see needles being painfully injected into arms ... arms where virtually all of the veins have collapsed.
All action takes place in a single room, with sparse color (a veridian green chair, variously colored T-shirts) that often resembles the simple sketches Botas is working on. Amazingly, the visuals and content are never monotonous. A simple, original score of guitar music is progressively simplified, until by the film's end ... only one string is plucked at a time, (underscoring the peeling away of physical resources experienced by the patients.) Lucas Platt revealed (in his post-screening talk) that he had over 140 hours of video to edit, and a three-week deadline for the world premiere of a rough cut, (held at a Festival in Spain last year.) It was possibly that frantic deadline that forced him to instinctively select the most cogent sequences ... resulting in a perfectly balanced, simple portrait of love, laughter, survival, triumph of the human spirit, and utter pain and desolation.
Half way through the project, Juan Botas dies. The camera unblinkingly records it all: his last visit to the room, when his fevers have gotten worse and he is forced to confront his own imminent mortality; the speculation amongst his friends while he's in the hospital; finally, the naked grief they share on the day of his death. That is, perhaps, the film's greatest gift: it completely strips away whatever distance you have managed to construct between yourself and AIDS. A recent survey revealed that 56% of Americans claim they don't "know" anyone who is gay. With this film, you get to know the patients more than you might want to ... and there are many moments of stark self-recognition (including internalized homophobia and shame over AIDS) that you might not want to recognize.
Self-described as "healthy and heterosexual," Lucas Platt completed the project for the deceased Botas. Footage was shot over a 13-month period. Platt confessed that he was plagued with self doubt about being able to do the men justice, about being able to capture their stories the way that Juan would have. "Doing this project has forever changed my life," Platt confessed in an emotion-choked voice, "the greatest compliment I got was from the clinic's administrator, Gene Fedorkov, who phoned me after seeing it, and said, 'I didn't think you'd understand us enough to be able to do this ... you proved me wrong ... and I love you for that.'" Platt continued, "I don't know what my next project will be, but I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to do another film about AIDS .... even if it typecasts me."
One of the film's most unforgettable sequences is as a Canadian patient describes the agonizing deterioration his lover when through before his death. "I had to beg his family to attend his funeral ... I had to beg for his ashes ... after all of that love ... to be treated like ... nothing!" He collapses into dry, heaving sobs. The black orderly, Tyrone, kisses him on the head, kneels and holds him, with all the majesty of a classic piece of sculpture. The unmoving camera records this sequence, with no music for a full two minutes. Though it is painfully obvious that the two men have forgotten the camera is there ... it is a soaring and searing visual image.
Amazingly, overall the film isn't depressing or a "downer." It is full of wonderful, camp, black humor. (At one point two patients discussing their inability to find someone to sign a living will ... laughingly speculate on signing for each other.) The film is very life affirming in the naked honesty, shared unhesitatingly, by real people. By the time of the film's premiere, nearly half the patients had died. Botas's project records the staggeringly loss of talent and humanity that AIDS has wrecked upon our society in a highly personal scale. ONE FOOT will reveal a lot about yourself, as whatever you have placed between yourself and the plague, (denial, "I didn't know any of them") is removed.
Required viewing.
.
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