Zero patience

John Greyson’s Zero Patience takes as its premise, the very serious subject of the history and politics of the AIDS virus and turns it into an offbeat hybrid of the Hollywood musical. Referencing and connecting unlikely subjects like French philosopher Michel Foucault, Busby Berkeley musicals and the history of contagious diseases. The films playful lack of respect for historical figures and its fairly decent musical numbers are some of its many pleasures. (Not to mention singing sphincters and a drag queen HIV virus!) Set in present day Toronto, Zero Patience has famous sexologist and explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton (John Robinson), still alive due to his discovery of the fountain of youth and working as chief taxidermist for the Natural History Museum. His current project, a retrospective of famous diseases of the ages. Enter patient zero (Normand Fauteux), the ghost of the Canadian flight attendant believed to be the first reported AIDS fatality, who has come back from the dead to clear his name and set the record straight.