Films involving AIDS

AIDS: Major Films

Title	My Own Country (1998) (TV Film)
Alternative/Original Title
Disability	AIDS
Country	USA
Length	95
Genre	Biography
Rating	3
Director	Mira Nair
Cast	Naveen Andrews Glenne Headly Hal Holbrook Marisa Tomei
Notes	Here I must declare some predujice because I just couldn't swallow some of the biography of this true story. This may simply result from finding the lead actor unsympathetic. A young man, Abraham, born in Ethiopia of Indian parents flees from persecution to India where he studies medicine. Then when qualified he migrates to the U.S. His obstenible reason is that he wants his son(s) to have what he didn't. Though his wife is not happy at all and remains in the tightly knit Indian community. From Boston he moves to a Tennessee hospital where he becomes Head of Infectious Diseases. In fact he specialises in AIDS which in the 1980s was spreading to rural areas. This allows Doctor Abraham to educate the 'ignorant southern peasants'. While he faces some predujice he is sweetness and light to his patients and the gay community. Unfortunately the film descends into sloppy sentimentalism as the doctor becomes a guru/confidante to all and sundry. This may partly result from the film being based on the doctor's own book. When I was travelling through the southern states in 1991 I often saw the sign over motels "American owned". This I didn't understand and initially equated it with seeing the star and stripes flying everywhere hundreds of miles from any border. Then I realised that many motels were being run by Asians. From the book by Abraham Verghese

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