HIV-Positive Yacht Sailors Make a Statement in ‘Rock the Boat’

It’s hard to make much more of “Rock the Boat” than this:

In 1997, 12 sailors of varying skill, united only by the fact that they were HIV-positive, sailed in the TransPac boat race from Los Angeles to Hawaii. Their boat leaked, creaked, ripped and bent, but held together long enough to cross the finish line--19th in a field of 37. Filmmaker Bobby Houston recorded the effort for this documentary.

Where you go from here depends not on your view of HIV-positive men but on your view of symbols and symbolism. If self-selected symbols make you queasy, be advised. Yes, the crew is defying death, but that’s how it is every day in their AIDS-cocktail way of life. These folks aren’t heroes or fund-raisers or consciousness-raisers. A couple are sportsmen, but most are just trying to answer the question: I’m already a survivor, so what am I doing with today because tomorrow may be different?

This is an adventure documentary only in the sense that there’s a mission--like climbing a mountain or completing a marathon--that most of us wouldn’t choose from a list of personal options. There is no sense of competition--although the efforts by the captain to push his boat and crew turn into the most dramatic action.

Houston’s oddly polite film is essentially a one-camera show, with occasional jump-cuts to the folks back home reading the latest e-mail. Shooting at night in the blackness of the Pacific limits the dramatic tension and puts a tight focus on the crew. Focus is frequently lost completely in the pitch and yaw of the boat. Only hints are offered of developing relationships among crew members.

Each gets a moment to talk about when and where he learned he was HIV-positive. Like those war movie platoons, each man’s story is different. One was married, another took ill within weeks of a drunken episode. And also like a war movie, the body count is high. Each crew member, including Houston, describes the friends, partners and lovers lost to AIDS--their names are painted on the hull of the rented yacht, briefly called the Survivor.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: There’s some frank talk about unsafe sex.

‘Rock the Boat’

A Tell the Truth Pictures presentation. Directed by Bobby Houston. Producer Robert Hudson. Editor Michael Lorenzo. Camera and sound by Bobby Houston. Music by Kevin Hayes. Post production supervisor Scott Blook. Music supervisor Rich Dickerson, Boy/Girl Music Group. The crew: Robert Hudson, John Plander, Mike Schmidt, Ted Taylor, Dennis Boecker, Bill Kijovsky, Mike Burrelle, Richard Bartol, Keith Ericson, Bobby Houston, John Courter, Dulaine Ellis. Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes.

Exclusively at the Nuart Theater, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-6379.