A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The Blood of Yingzhou District

Date Viewed: 2/20/07

Details:

Director: Ruby Yang

Producer: Thomas Lennon

Score: 0

The Review: Welcome to the Chinese analog of the Indian untouchables -- young children with AIDS, from families both of whose parents had AIDS and who have since died. These children are pariahs in their own culture, even in (or perhaps especially in) their small poor country villages: only distant relatives maintain any sense of responsibility for them, and even these relatives become outcasts merely for taking care of their blood.

And blood is the key to the problem. The pittance of 53 yuan and egg-cakes is the fee for blood donation in these villages, but this pittance has become an essential part of their economy. The problem is that, for all that a blood donor in the US or Europe is not at any risk of AIDS from mere donation, this promise of one-way transmission is not kept in back-country China. Although the needles and equipment used are sterile for each donor, the mechanism is a type of apheresis, where a portion of the removed blood is returned to the donor. The reason cited was to rejuvenate the donor so they could donate again more frequently, but this is not the technical reason behind normal apheresis, where the platelets are collected but neither the red cells nor plasma. However, the system at fault mixes the separated cells and plasma among multiple patients before returning it to the current donor. Thus, a rare AIDS case will be propagated (essentially amplified) among a much larger population. In this way, AIDS is running rampant in some isolated provinces, and takes its toll on both old and young. AIDS is creating a Chinese culture of fear and isolation.

This poignant documentary follows a few of these children as they move among the villages, their custodians searching for a place they may call home.

Some of the accepted functions of documentaries are to educate, sometimes politically, and incite personal outrage, again sometimes socio-politically. While this documentary does provide a modicum of information about the nature of the epidemic and the origin of the people's fear, it seems far too quiet to elicit much rage against the machine or to educate the very people shown to be in need of it. The hard fought battle in the US promoting the non-transmissiblity of AIDS to a blood donor (given our current technology), and educating the public about normal modes of transmission of HIV -- neither of these has yet begun in earnest in the back-districts of China. And I'm not sure such a small film, no matter how well done and how much it pulls the heartstrings, will be the catalyst.

Winner of the 2006 Academy Award for documentary short feature (although I can understand why, clearly I disagree with this vote); other nominees included Recycled Life, Rehearsing a Dream and Two Hands.

(17-Mar-07)

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