The Lazarus Effect (HBO, Premieres Monday 5/24 at 9/8 Central)

(Directed By Lance Bangs)

May 24, 2010 By John Everhart Web Exclusive

The Lazarus Effect follows four HIV positive individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa and their transformation from frail, near-death emaciation into fully functioning human beings thanks to the effects of ARV (Antiretroviral) drug treatment. The filmmaker (director Lance Bangs) is thankfully hands off here, allowing the subjects' stories to be told in a manner devoid of voiceover narration or maudlin background music. It's austere, and keeps a film that could have easily crossed into manipulative exploitation grounded in exposition. It also recalls a conversation U2's Bono, also an Executive Producer of the film, once had with Bill O'Reilly on the O'Reilly Factor, defending Western humanitarian efforts to combat HIV in Africa, saying, "If a man's dying on the side of the road, you don't ask him how he got there, you just help him." The Lazarus Effect doesn't ask how these people got there either. It presents them as they are, without offering facile judgments, and for 40 cents worth of drugs a day they essentially rise from the dead, invoking the title of the film. That fact isn't just striking, it's sickening, yet the film feels oddly celebratory. There's no commiseration, just pragmatic recognition, which in of itself resonates and galvanizes (www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-lazarus-effect/index.html)

Author rating: 8/10

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Average reader rating: 8/10