An exploration not just of the Sackler family and their role in the opioid crisis and the art world but of how alternative communities live, thrive, and survive. The film uses Nan Goldin’s work and her life as exemplars of alternative communities—queer communities, sex worker communities, activist communities—and shows the importance of friendship groups and artistic communities as alternatives to the suburban American family. Laura Poitras skilfully weaves together the threads of Goldin’s life, work, and activism towards a conclusion that just falls short of pointing at the nuclear family as a specific locus of structural oppression but very clearly gestures in that direction. Whether Sackler or Goldin, the family controls and suppresses ways of being and gets away with murder.
film reviews as long as the films
20969 words / mins total