Methadonia

Methadone has been around for 30 years as a medicine that helps heroin addicts fighting their addiction. Methadonia is a thorough documentary that looks at its subject meticulously and not sensationally - and yet still manages to be spectacular. The film reveals enough, but the aim was not investigative journalism or a sociological indictment. As with a fictional feature, in the first instance it offers a framework within which several people are introduced. The film maker mainly focuses on the individuals and their specific problems and avoids generalisations. The film investigates a boarder area: the no-man's-land within which you can find both heroin addicts who want to get off their addiction using methadone as the methadone users who are on the way back to addiction. Methadone is a drug, but addicts make up many inventive cocktails of prescription medicines, the effects of which can compete with those of hard drugs. The combination with heavy sleeping pills and tranquilisers (benzodiazepines) is a particular favourite among methadone users yearning for a kick. The film follows several protagonists; people who have been addicted all their lives and may carry on that way for years. After 30 years they still believe that one day they won't be addicted any more. People who fill their days with the issue of whether they're addicted or not. Negroponte refuses to be pessimistic about it. He hopes along with his protagonists. (GjZ)