Silverlake Life

The tragic story, in the form of a video report, of the way film-maker Tom Joslin loses his battle against the devastating illness AIDS. When Joslin and his lover Mark Massi, with whom he has been for 23 years, are both diagnosed as suffering from AIDS, Joslin decides to record the process on video. Peter Friedman, ex-student and friend of Joslin, is asked to complete the journal when Joslin becomes too weak.At Christmas time, Joslin visits his parents along with Massi and they face all the tensions inherent in such an undertaking. Shots of this are juxtaposed with fragments from the film that Joslin made 15 years earlier, Blackstar: Autobiography of a Close Friend, in which his parents openly expressed their opposition to their son’s homosexual relationship. The video material also shows a visit to a therapist, a brief vacation, but above all the severe and futuristic treatment that Joslin and Massi experience in hospital and the far-reaching physical and emotional exhaustion; the sleepless nights as a result of the disease.At the start of the film, Joslin is still able to reflect on events on camera with a sense of humour, but at a certain point that is no longer possible. Joslin is too weak and sighs: ‘I’ve lost the steam of life’. When he dies, he only weights 30 kilos. Mark Massi is left alone and heart-broken.David Ehrenstein (The Advocate) opens his review of this film with: ‘I’d like to recommend something you probably aren’t going to be able to watch all the way through.’