Review of The Panic in Needle Park (1971) by Michelle M — 21 Nov 2011

I don't quite understand why this film doesn't have a higher rating. I can't tell you the last time it was I saw a female character so infuriatingly real: Helen (our protagonist) moves from truth to truth depending upon what desire it is she wishes feed, whether it be love, heroin or the need to be needed.

I'm not sure if I should be crediting Didion and Dunn for this amazing multi-faceted performance, or Kitty Winn herself (I tend toward the latter; she is an actress who makes me weep for not making more films).

Helen is one of the many victims of the sixties, swept up in the media and culture that requires desperation, poverty and perversion in order to prove you are not part of the establishment. The evil empire seems to leave a tiny window open to those disaffected youths that simply want to do something different from what their parents did.

Helen embodies this tiny window and how easily it can shatter into absolute debauchery. It is her own corruption that mirrors the decent into over-indulgence that the 70's is known for, both in cinema and in life.

The film questions the line between ultimate living and ultimate hell.