Union Square (2003)
January 10th, 2007
This is a documentary by Stephen J. Szklarski about the lives of street junkies in New York. I watched it looking for insights into the lives of the street people I see every day in Ottawa.
Everyone in this movie panhandles or steals just long enough to get a fix. Then they go to a public washroom and shoot up. The camera goes in with them so you see a lot of drugs being injected into veins.
Some of the people here, like Ron, don’t seem like the street people I’m familiar with. Ron is well spoken and personable, and he manages to keep his clothes clean, so he could pass as a law student or something. But he is a junkie.
No matter what they look like, their lives all have exactly the same shape: Get money, shoot drugs, get some more money, shoot some more drugs. Details like eating and sleeping are secondary.
Here are some more pictures of the people in this movie:
I didn’t really get any insights. This movie is unpleasant and disillusioning. Maybe you should watch it if you think street people are victims of poverty who just want a place to live so they won’t have to be homeless any more. They don’t want a place to live! They want money for drugs.
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