i really enjoyed this doco, well enjoy is not the right term by any means but i cant for now find a better word to describe how i feel towards this film.
the film itself is really pretty poorly shot and the audio is really bad at times, but i was not watching this to have a cinematic experience, i was watching it to try and get an insight into the world of the people involved and on that level it really delivers. it focus's on 6 or 7 different heroin addicts, all homeless and living in union square, hence the name of the film. it trys to give an insight into what makes these people users and trys to highlight the severity of the problems that stem from being a heroin addict. clearly homelessness being the primary problem but also other problems come to light throughout the telling of their stories.
i was a little shocked by the injection scenes, i have always been uncomfortable watching people shoot up, be it on screen or in real life but i guess these scenes were being used to emphasize the complete awfulness of injecting and hope that non users who see this will be steered away from trying it due to the disgusting images portrayed in this film.
anyway i feel this could really become a great educational tool for the social welfare sector worldwide and hope that it gets picked up on by social workers worldwide for this purpose. i am a youth worker and shall be using it to highlight the obvious but often overlooked effects of heroin.
also please not that although IMDb has this listed as being rated R here in Australia it is actually rated M15+ so can be viewed by a larger target group.
the film itself is really pretty poorly shot and the audio is really bad at times, but i was not watching this to have a cinematic experience, i was watching it to try and get an insight into the world of the people involved and on that level it really delivers. it focus's on 6 or 7 different heroin addicts, all homeless and living in union square, hence the name of the film. it trys to give an insight into what makes these people users and trys to highlight the severity of the problems that stem from being a heroin addict. clearly homelessness being the primary problem but also other problems come to light throughout the telling of their stories.
i was a little shocked by the injection scenes, i have always been uncomfortable watching people shoot up, be it on screen or in real life but i guess these scenes were being used to emphasize the complete awfulness of injecting and hope that non users who see this will be steered away from trying it due to the disgusting images portrayed in this film.
anyway i feel this could really become a great educational tool for the social welfare sector worldwide and hope that it gets picked up on by social workers worldwide for this purpose. i am a youth worker and shall be using it to highlight the obvious but often overlooked effects of heroin.
also please not that although IMDb has this listed as being rated R here in Australia it is actually rated M15+ so can be viewed by a larger target group.