The height of the AIDS crisis coincided with the rise of camcorder culture, and its epicenter was in Greenwich Village, heavily populated by artists and media-savvy young people. As a result, the struggle for political acknowledgement and solutions was recorded in-depth, as reflected by David France’s essential documentary tracing the efforts of ACT UP and its offshoot organization, TAG. Using no narration and the bare minimum of onscreen text — largely limited to a year-by-year tally of the disease’s mounting death toll — France lets the story unfold through contemporary footage, giving the scramble to procure recognition, treatment and effective drugs a real-time urgency. This approach virtually erases the viewer’s hindsight, affording each victory and loss a vivid, in-the-moment suspense. It also allows the villains of the piece, in particular George H.W. Bush and Jesse Helms, to condemn themselves with their own repulsive words. In the end, the sparing use of modern-day talking heads suddenly gives way to a silent montage of the survivors. The effect is incredibly moving. The loss of those we’ve watched over the past two hours — those whose faces don’t reappear — resonates profoundly. It also serves, as suggested by the instruction-manual title, as a primer for political action, demonstrating the change that a motivated and (mostly) united community can effect. —Shaun Brady (Ritz at the Bourse)