"There will never be a drug free society because every time there is a baby born there is a chance of  addiction" -- Anonymous from Bevel Up 

Bevel Up
Film Review
Title: Bevel Up
Director:  Nettie Wild 

HOT DOCS Bevel Up WEBSITE  

4 Stars

Reviewed By: Todd Andre (Calgary Correspondent - Canada)

"There will never be a drug free society because every time there is a baby born there is a chance of  addiction" -- Anonymous from Bevel Up 

Give them the tired, the poor, the wretched refuse of the teeming shore.  It's almost as if Emma Lazarus wrote that famous poem - engraved on the tablet of the Statue of Liberty - for the huddled masses who inhabit the harsh streets of Vancouver's downtown Eastside.  The only light for these struggling few is not one lady with a torch, but twelve street nurses armed with black satchels.  

Bevel Up shows its audience the dangers and difficulties for providing healthcare to a nomadic population with no fixed address.  The job demands courage from its practitioners and the documentary demands courage from its audience.  The street drug scene is not a pretty place.

"I expected the open drug use - it was the intimacy that surprised me," said director Nettie Wild, who has tackled the subject matter earlier in her 2003 Genie Award winning documentary feature FIX: The Story of an Addicted City.  "Most of the people who were openly smoking or injecting knew the street nurses by name, many were long term clients.  People who agreed to be filmed did so because they support the street nurses in their quest to teach others how to deliver realistic and compassionate healthcare to people who use drugs."

Most of the time the camera follows the film's co-creator and registered nurse Caroline Brunt as she moves from dim alleyways to sun-bleached street corners to seedy hotel rooms in search of her regular patients.  She makes sure they have clean needles, personal mouthpieces (for crack pipes) and the skills to inject safely.  When she catches patients she hasn't seen for a while, she gives them an on the spot blood test.  Not only is this done quickly, but it is done with a seemingly limitless supply of patience and compassion for their troubled patients.   

It feels like these nurses could be my Mom. 

The liberal approach to drug abuse taken by the film is controversial, but the film answers this with over 3.5 hours of additional material that addresses ethical, professional and legal issues that surround the problem.  The experts are largely against prohibition, but politics aside, the information is valuable to any sect of the population dealing with drug addiction - especially nurses. 

The initial purpose of the DVD was to provide nurses across the country with the necessary skills to connect and communicate with people who use drugs.  Canada still has no standard curriculum installed in our universities and colleges to teach nurses the skills to handle these challenges.             

The raw cinèma verité style suits the frank demeanour of the nurses and the surprising honesty of their ‘using' patients.  The objective distance of the filmmakers reflects the commitment of the nurses to approach their clientele without judging.  This allows the audience to decide for themselves what they think of the treatment approach to drug use. 

These issues will be surfacing more frequently in Vancouver as the 2010 Olympics closes in.  The film should help the general public clarify what treatment looks like on the ground, and close the knowledge gap so these issues can be debated rationally within the public sphere. 

Bevel Up is definitely one of the most important films at Hot Docs this year, but it is one of the hardest ones to stomach.  If you don't like needles, it may not be for you.