I spent the week in Paris, catching up with old friends. It's springtime here, and Parisians seem to be coming out of hibernation. Soaring temperatures and clear blue skies are luring everyone outside, and the terraces of brasseries and bistros are packed. We are between the first and second round of the presidential elections, so everyone is talking politics. It's amazing to see the subject take centre stage across the capital, discussed ad nauseam in passionate conversations and debates. Cannes is only a fortnight away, but a quick survey of my cinephile friends revealed that very few people even knew the title of the opening night film...
In between the Seine-side picnics, café gossip, house parties and strolls in the Père Lachaise, I was able to squeeze in a few films. My favourite among them was André Téchiné's follow up to Changing Times, The Witnesses (Les Témoins): an ensemble drama set in the mid-eighties, during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
For his 20th feature film, the French director travels back some 20 years to a time when AIDS was a mysterious, misunderstood disease which silently decimated thousands of homosexuals, prostitutes and drug users in the French capital. Four friends and lovers find themselves deeply affected by the arrival of the young and beautiful Manu (Johan Libéreau), who's come from the Province to join his opera singer sister (Julie Depardieu) in the big city.
Like many before him, Manu has traveled to Paris to experiment with his new found sexual identity. It's summer '84 and gay hedonism has found a home in the city's parks and bars. While cruising for sex, Manu befriends a gay doctor (Michel Blanc). The older man takes him under his wing and introduces him to his writer friend Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart) and her cop husband Medhi (Sami Bouajila). When the latter falls for the young man, the destinies of these five characters become inextricably linked.
When Manu becomes ill, they must all redefine their relationships with one another, their sense of responsibility, their carefree lifestyles. Téchiné's subtle parallel between the arrival of the seductive young man and that of the insidious virus gives the story its structure and its power. Les Témoins chronicles the loss of sexual innocence brought about by the epidemic, the end of a time when friendships and relationships were open, flexible, transparent.
Martine Giordano's sprightly editing moves things along at a breakneck pace, Téchiné refusing to dwell on tragedy. His richly detailed characters laugh, dance, fuck, fight, cry and mourn with the relentlessness of those who have embraced life. Téchiné's film celebrates this lust for life which not even the promise of illness, violence or death can stifle.
From the first exhilirating minute to the final, optimistic scene, the film pulses with the characters' determination to choose their own fate and fight the powers of oppression, at a time when the government's criminal neglect left many to die in total indifference.
It takes great performances to convey this appetite for life in a film overshadowed by death. The seasoned actors shine, accepting to surrender to the film's rhythm, never giving in to the subject's inherent sentimentality. These witnesses must decide whether they are merely bystanders in a time of injustice and tragedy, or whether they also hold the power to testify. Sami Bouajila is especially convincing as a police detective struggling with his attraction for the young man. As Manu, rising star Johan Libéreau (first noticed in the great Cold Showers) is a revelation, equally at ease in the exhibitionist body of the adventurous stud as in the decaying skin of an AIDS patient.
Revisiting the rise of the AIDS epidemic with the wisdom of distance and hindsight enables Téchiné to use the disease as a narrative device, a tool to explore the dual subject of honesty and activism. Doing so with the same urgency as if the film had been made back in 1985 gives the film the seductive aura of a great political thriller. Approaching this important era from a queer angle (at lease as queer as French culture - often reluctant to reason in terms of gender politics - will allow), makes for a very personal film which clearly stands out in the current cinematic landscape.
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4 comments:
I am usually not a big fan of Techine, and was fearing a bit that topic of the film could be quite slippery. But I was definitely moved, intrigued and deeply interested in the film. It is subtle and keeps walking on the very thin line of presenting hedonism alongside rising concern and fear brought about by the news disease. Strongly recommended! P
Salut Mathieu!
I am glad to read that there are other Les témoins-enthusiasts in France, since it did not make heaps of money (I was in Paris two weeks ago and it was hard to find a cinema where it was still playing). Thanks for your review - I especially liked the fact that you noticed the editing as well, which is one of the key elements why most of Téchiné's films seem to work so well.
Boyd
NB: My own review of Les témoins is online here...but it is a loooooooooooong read (even though I had to cut out a lot of what I wanted to say). Be warned!
(NB2: Je lis ton blog depuis un peu de temps et je crois que je suis en train de devenir un "fan"!!)
Hey Boyd,
Thanks for your comment! And for your kind words. I read European-films.net religiously, so it means a lot.
The worldwide discussion on film and film criticism is still very US-centric (not to mention, of course, the industry as a whole), so it's thrilling that there's a strong (English-language, ie: accessible) voice coming out of Europe.
Many people out there won't have direct access to the films you write about, but they need to know that they exist, that they are out there, that there are millions of people who feel strongly about them. We can demand them of our local cinema, our video shop, our televisions.
Films like Téchiné's, for example, deserve to be seen widely. I also struggled to find a cinema in Paris who screened the film. I'm thinking it'll get significant worldwide exposure on the festival circuit though.
Thank you for your kind words! In fact the whole purpose of the website is to give a better overview of what's happening in European cinema even if films do not always open everywhere... before the website started it often seemed that if Variety didn't review the film it didn't exist, and that if they gave the film a bad review it was just a bad film... the idea is to counterbalance this a bit and give people and idea of what is happening around the continent film-wise.
Happy to hear you are a "religious reader" ;)
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