No
One Sleeps, written, directed, and produced by Jochen
Hick, focuses on a theory regarding the origin of the HIV
virus. Although most medical authorities believe that the
HIV virus was originally found within monkeys in Africa and
then transmitted by human contact, the link between monkey-handlers
in Africa and the first diagnosed cases among Caucasian gays
in Los Angeles has never been found. German medical student
Stefan Hein (played by Tom Wlaschiha), the twentysomething
son of a deceased medical researcher, arrives in San Francisco
to investigate his East German father’s theory that the HIV
virus originated in sheep and was transmitted to humans through
a medical experiment by the U.S. Department of Defense on
prisoners in Maryland who were later released for their role
in the experiment; the researchers presumed the experiment
failed, not realizing that the incubation rate for HIV to
develop into AIDS could take many years. While jogging in
Golden Gate Park one day, Hein encounters the dead body of
Angelo Molina, whose murder is being investigated by homicide
detective Louise Tolliver (played by Irit Levi). Molina has
a red cross painted on him. Next, Hein makes a presentation
of his research project at a half-day conference on AIDS at
Golden Gate University, which accepted him to give a talk
about his father’s theory, last presented at a San Francisco
AIDS conference in 1989. At the end of the talk Hein discloses
that he is in San Francisco to find some of the original participants
in the experiment to test his theory. Skeptics in the audience
through cold water on his theory, but neurologist Dr. Richard
Burroughs (played by Richard Conti) tells Stefan that he finds
the theory "interesting." Stefan then tries to contact older
HIV+ males to see if they were involved the experiment, going
to an AIDS awareness center, an AIDS hospice, and a notorious
kinky sex club where HIV-infected men are having unprotected
sex. During his peregrinations, he runs into café waiter Jeffrey
Russo (played by Jim Thalman) on several occasions, and the
two ultimately have rough sex. Indeed, San Francisco's kinky
community tempts Hein to abandon safe-sex practices. On emerging
from the sex club, Tolliver remarks, "With tits like that,
no wonder you guys don’t need women." Meanwhile, more dead
bodies of HIV+ victims turn up murdered, grist for the mills
of right-wing politicians who capitalize on the alleged depravity
of the city in upcoming elections, and the paths of Hein and
Tolliver cross several times, mostly on the latter’s initiative
because she has now come to believe that the men are being
killed to stop Hein from finding them first. One evening Hein
breaks into Dr. Burroughs’s office to locate an original list
of participants in the experiment, and indeed the names on
the list match those who have recently been killed. Soon,
Dr. Burroughs shows up dead, and two FBI officers arrest Hein.
After getting the list from him, the FBI turns him over to
Tolliver, who releases him. Now she believes that the FBI
is responsible for the killings in order to cover up the link
between the Maryland experiments and the origin of HIV. Clearly,
the purpose of the film is to keep an alternative theory of
the origin of HIV before the filmviewing public. Throughout
the film, we hear the "Nessun Dorma" aria from Puccini’s Turandot,
a favorite of Dr. Burroughs and others that presents an analogy
for the medical experiments and for the dangers of searching
for the truth, as the princess in the opera has the heads
of her suitors removed when they fail to answer three puzzling
questions. The film’s title is a permutation of the words
"Nessun Dorma" (No one shall sleep!). MH
I
want to comment on this film
