Film documents TB epidemic in R.I.

Most documentaries are informative, interesting and expertly filmed. But it is rare when raw emotion, the juxtapostion of death and hope of life, and cinematography that brings a viewer into the souls of the subjects of a film, make their way onto a non-fiction screen. But “On The Lake: Life and Love in a Distant Place” does just that.

Filmmakers David Bettencourt and G. Wayne Miller tell a touching, often times heart-wrenching story of the history of the tunerculosis epidemic. These two Rhode Islanders find the beginning for their tale in their home state, at the Zambarano Hospital in Pascoag.  The state-run hospital opened in 1905 as the Wallum Lake Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Using black-and-white film and still photos, and interviews with survivors of the deadly disease who were treated at Wallum Lake, a vivid picture is painted of the hodgepodge of medical, and non-medical treatments for those who were diagnosed with TB.

During more than a year of research, the filmmakers found themselves traveling the country, visiting other former sanatorium sites, speaking with experts and survivors or relatives of survivors.

Miller is an award-winning journalist at the Providence Journal. He’s written seven books. Bettencourt is a Rhode Island filmmaker whose feature length documentary, “You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point,“ won critical acclaim.

It is simply spell-binding to watch this film and see how children and adults were made to sleep in beds placed on porches in the dead of winter. The thinking of the medical community then was fresh air and sunlight would help to rid the body of tuberculosis.

Related Link: “On The Lake” Official Web Site

Of the many on-camera interviews of survivors, all excently filmed, two stand out. One is with Barbara Pakos, of Newport. She was sent to Wallum Lake when she was 13 years old, diagnosed with TB. With tears running down her cheeks, she relates an episode when she overhears a doctor telling her parents that she would be there “for up to two years.“ 

“I can’t stay that long,“ she remembers thinking.

Then Pakos tells of a friendship she develops with another girl her age. “She became my sister,“ she said. They would hold hands laying in beds placed next to each other. Then one morning, Pakos saw her little friend covered with a blanket, head to toe. “She died last night,“ an attendant tells her, as Pakos breaks down, still stung and sad over this traumatic slice of her life.

The other interview that is extremely compelling is with Barbara Bowie. She too was being treated at Wallum Lake. But she was a bit older than Pakos and was engaged.

Bowie’s still living sister gave the filmmakers letters, which were voiced for the film by a young actress Alexandra McDougall. It is both chilling and heart-tugging to hear the words of this young woman, who was dying, writing to her fiance with all the hope and promise of a woman in love.

Throughout this film, Bettencourt and Miller masterfully weave a story of medical breakthrough and disappointment with the personal devastation, and sometimes elation, of patients who provide such a meaningful and important human element to the story.

The medical history of tuberculosis is well documented in the film, through interviews with experts from Brown Medical School, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Colorado and the National Jewish Health Center in Denver and others.

An orginal music score by Lonnie Montaquila and Ben Mesiti hit all the right notes in all the right places.

The film ends with the almost eerie voice of the young Barbara Bowie. In a last letter to her sister, she complains of loneliness, but at the same time still clinging to hope and looking forward to getting out of Wallum Lake.

“I get ready for company every single Thursday, and I have company alright! Disappointment. That’s about all. Good thing we have movies,“ she says.

And now we have this movie, an unforgettable film about what still is the world’s second deadliest disease.

It premieres this Friday at the Stadium Theater in Woonsocket.  It’s worth the price of the ticket.

I’m giving it 5 peacocks out of 5.  Bravo!