All the Beauty and the Bloodshed: Film Review
It’s not often a documentary wins the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival – and there’s a good reason why Laura Poitras‘ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed was the second-ever documentary to win the honour last year.
The doc tells the story of the photographer and activist Nan Goldin. The narrative flips back and forth between her life story – her troubled upbringing, her photography career and rise to fame in ’80s New York – and her recent activism work. As a former OxyContin addict, Goldin is the co-founder of P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now). Her group strives to hold the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, accountable for the U.S. opioid crisis by creating the addictive prescription painkiller.
The documentary can feel a little slow at times, particularly when Goldin is narrating her life story as a slideshow of her pictures flicks across the screen. Knowing nothing about Goldin at all, I still found it interesting but I was always champing at the bit for the narrative to get back to her activism work. I felt more emotionally connected to that side of the story and found it deeply moving.
I would have liked to know more about Goldin’s history with OxyContin and how it led to more potent opioids (which happens to many). She does talk about it briefly but I wanted more details about her personal story. However, we do hear testimonies from the families of victims about how their loved ones’ OxyContin addiction took over their lives. It is also incredibly emotional seeing P.A.I.N. members stage demonstrations against the Sacklers in prestigious museums bearing their name.
The documentary serves as a celebration of Goldin’s photography. We see so many incredible images as she tells her story. She is famous for candid portraits of a diverse range of people living in the hard-partying scene of ’70/’80s New York. The outsiders, the artists, writers and actors, the sex workers, members of the LGBTQ+ community and those on the fringes of society. I should warn you that some of the photos depict nudity and sexual acts.
I’m glad I came into this movie having already seen the 2021 miniseries Dopesick, which is a drama about the creation and impact of OxyContin. That meant I went in with a deeper understanding of the crisis and immediately knew the context of the group’s first protest inside The Met in New York. I would highly recommend watching that if you haven’t already.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed isn’t quite as perfect as I’d been led to believe but it is still a powerful, engrossing, thought-provoking documentary.
In cinemas from Friday 27th January