The Grove

Virtually unknown outside the Bay Area, America's official national memorial to AIDS victims resides in Golden Gate Park as an off-the-beaten-track seven-acre grove of trees, gardens, and stone pavements. Inaugurated under the Clinton Administration—ultimately pushed through with some legislative legerdemain by Nancy Pelosi (who appears here)—the National AIDS Memorial Grove is scarcely as famed as the vast AIDS quilt. Hoping to raise more awareness, the Grove's board of directors decides to hold a competition for a suitable monument to the hundreds of thousands of AIDS casualties. But even with a winner among the 261 entries, nobody seems satisfied, and arguments arise charging that the design violates the peaceful sanctity of the place. Squabbling Grove guardians look to Maya Lin's famed (and controversial) Vietnam Memorial as an example of what they would like to accomplish, but the goal remains out of reach by the end of this solemn sidebar to the AIDS saga, which suggests that any mere human construct will be inadequate to convey the attendant tragedy—or at least satisfy a picky committee. Filmmaker Andy Abraham Wilson's The Grove is a powerful tale that also reminds viewers of Lincoln's oft-quoted dictum about the impossibilities of pleasing all of the people all of the time. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)