ADDICTED CITY SHOULD BE REQUIRED VIEWING

Look at the documentary Fix: Diary of an Addicted City and then do the
morning commute through Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Then watch the movie again - it should be required viewing for anyone who
thinks they know this city. Vancouver director Nettie Wild, who has made a
career of documenting war zones from Chiapas to the Phillippines, found the
frontlines of the so-called war on drugs right here at home.

Part political drama, part protest document, part love story, the resulting
movie is as contradictory and disturbing as the urban reality it
depict. Pick your message: intravenous drugs are nasty ugly and they kill
(they are and they do), criminalizing drug users doesn't work (one cop
refers to policing the Eastside as "shovelling water"), tax-paying
residents and business people will rise as one shrill mass at any move
towards "harm reduction" (i.e. giving users someplace other than a
piss-soaked alley to shoot up). Wild's film manages to avoid facile
rhetoric - she fashions a narrative with complex characters, tension,
success and heartbreak.

Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen and his thwarted bid for a harm reduction
program are central to the story. Owen shows a surprisingly streetwise
take on the problem, leavened with flashes of naivete. At one point he
tells of an Eastside activist's successful battle with addiction, only to
be told the man is still a user.

That would be Dean Wilson, the other central player. Sometimes charming,
sometimes manipulative, the tattooed ex-jailbird is the Downtown Eastside's
hope and bane in one person.

The movie big question: Given that people are dying from habits they can't
shake, is it worth trying to make them healthy and safe? Getting to know
some of Wild's hard-luck subjects, one reaction is that I wouldn't want to
have them over for dinner. On the other hand, I'd say the same about, say,
some federal Liberals - but I wouldn't want to see them dying on the
streets, either.

Review

Diary of an Addicted City

Rating: (out of four)
Classification: Subject to classification
Playing at: Granville