Gay & Lesbian Coalition to Present ‘Poison,’ ‘Positive’

The Gay & Lesbian Media Coalition presents as part of its occasional “Out on the Screen” programs “Absolutely Positive” on Saturday at the Pacific Design Center at 7 p.m. and again at 9:30 as a benefit for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. On Sunday at 7:30 p.m. and again at 9:30 the coalition will screen Todd Haynes’ controversial, much-discussed “Poison.”

The presentation of these two films represent the most ambitious programming yet beyond the coalition’s annual L.A. International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, which this year runs July 11-20 at the Directors Guild. For “Absolutely Positive,” veteran Bay Area documentarian Peter Adair and his colleagues, best-known for “The Word Is Out,” a survey of lives of gays and lesbians of varying generations, interviewed 125 people from which they selected 11 men and women to talk about their lives since they tested HIV positive--as Adair himself has.

This powerful, understated film leaves us with several indelible, emotion-charged impressions: First, that these individuals, confronted with a sense of their mortality, have developed a perspective on life that can only be described as enviable; there’s much we can learn from them.

A number of them have gotten their lives together and straightened out their values and priorities only because they have learned they may die sooner than they ever anticipated. This sense of cruel irony is compounded by a realization of the randomness with which the AIDS virus strikes. We meet a man--infected by his late, drug-user wife--who has fathered a child by another woman, yet both she and their baby have tested negative.

Filmmaker Marlon T. Riggs, the only well-known individual among the interviewees, tells us he has tested HIV positive, but that his lover, who has already lost two previous lovers to AIDS, remains HIV negative. Adair’s selection of interviewees cuts across race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and even geography, but all 11 speak of their fear of telling others of their diagnosis. While most have learned to become open about it, one young man admits that he hopes when “Absolutely Positive” airs on PBS “it will be opposite the Academy Awards.”

After a UCLA screening of “Poison” a few weeks ago, writer-director Todd Haynes and producer Christine Vachon admitted that the controversy sparked by the funding they received from the embattled National Endowment for the Arts is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it has generated considerable advance publicity and a wider-than-planned release for the film, which opens at the Nuart May 17.

But, on the other hand, it has created false expectations. Yes, there is some sex, but it’s not explicit. “Poison,” in which Haynes has intercut three stories, is sure to disappoint those expecting nonstop steamy erotica.

Haynes’ “three tales of transgression and punishment” involve a gay prison fantasy derived from Jean Genet, reminiscent of Genet’s “Chant d’Amour” and suffused with sexual longing; a beautifully sustained spoof of a ‘50s B horror that emerges as a serious metaphor for AIDS, and a bizarre, pseudo-documentary account of suburban patricide. For ticket information: (213) 650-5133.