Product Details

• Actors: Emmanuelle Béart, Michel Blanc, Sami Bouajila, Julie Depardieu, Johan Libéreau
• Directors: André Téchiné
• Writers: André Téchiné, Laurent Guyot, Vivian Zingg
• Producers: Said Ben Said
• Format: Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Strand Releasing
• DVD Release Date: June 24, 2008
• Run Time: 112 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0016MXK9O
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,287 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Witnesses" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Andr‚ T‚chin‚'s lush drama follows a close knit group of friends who are faced with the dawn of a sexual revolution in the early 1980's. The Witnesses tracks the relationship of a young writer played by Emmanuelle B‚art (8 Women, Mission: Impossible, Strayed), her detective boyfriend, a reknown doctor and how their lives collide when a young, attractive gay man joins their circle. Set in Paris and the countryside, T‚chin‚ blends the storylines and parallel lives with an erotic naturalism, yet never ignoring the consequences of sexual freedom.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love and Passion in the 1980s: Enter the Spectre, June 28, 2008

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Witnesses (DVD)

Les Témoins (The Witnesses) is another fine artwork by French director André Téchiné that continues to examine relationships in times of stress and through areas of rough travel. As written by Téchiné, Laurent Guyot, and Viviane Zingg this film is a love story and a social commentary on life in 1984 when AIDS raised its ugly head and disrupted lives, hopes and relationships. What could have been a heavy-handed woeful tale is instead a story about ordinary people and how the spectre of the then 'new disease' affected a small group of friends. In the intimacy of the story there is an opportunity to reflect and to see more clearly the atmosphere of that time in history.

Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart) is a writer of children's books married to Mehdi (Sami Bouajila), a member of the Paris police force vice squad. They have an open marriage and have just given birth to a baby boy - a factor that disrupts their separate lives while conflicting their married life. Sarah has a physician friend Adrien (Michel Blanc, so memorable in his role in 'Monsieur Hire') who is gay, and while he is older, he still longs for the company of young men. Adrien meets the young catering student Manu (Johan Libéreau), a lad whose sexual appetite is satisfied by trysts in parks, back rooms of bars, etc. Manu and his opera singer sister Julie (Julie Depardieu) live modestly in a sleazy hotel cum brothel that is under surveillance by Mehdi. Adrien and Manu strike up a friendship and are invited to join Sarah and Mehdi to Sarah's mother's cabin by the sea and while there a relationship between Manu and Mehdi begins, one that will become an affair in secret.

A strange disease comes to public attention and it is Adrien who is in charge of the investigation of the disease now called AIDS. Though Adrien's ties with Manu have become platonic while Manu see Mehdi daily, Adrien is the first to notice lesions on Manu, lesions that are the hallmark of AIDS. How this discovery affects the lives of each of the characters we have met (the 'witnesses' to a very important time in our history) serves as the crux of the story - part tragedy and part a torch of resilience the weaves the story to a close in an honest, touching but never maudlin manner.

The acting is consistently excellent, the sort of ensemble acting that keeps the focus on the message of the film rather than on individual attention to characters. The movie is beautifully photographed by Julien Hirsch and the musical score by Philippe Sarde wisely blends excerpts from Vivaldi and Mozart with original music that recalls the 1980s. This is yet another triumph for André Téchiné - a film that deserves the widest possible audience. Grady Harp, June 08

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Mess, February 13, 2009

By 

Daniel G. Lebryk (Chicago) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Witnesses (DVD)

This film was just all over the map and messy for me. It just never engaged me at all. The topic, love, freedom, France in the 80's (I lived there at that time) and the appearance of AIDS in the 80's was what drew me to this film. And I happen to really like André Téchiné, the director's films. The initial editing was choppy, the story line seemed to bounce all over, and it was very hard for me to follow the characters from the outset. Once the film settled in and I got to know the characters better, the relationships just had no intensity or compassion in them. The coupling just seemed robotic. People were cold to eachother, with what seemed to be very little feeling.

So I certainly apologize to those that loved this film. But it just didn't engage me at all, and I wanted so much to like this film. There was nothing off putting about the topic, it just didn't seem to have heart where I wanted it.

Technically, it's a very well made film. The DVD company made a huge mistake in printing the subtitles over the film, although most Americans would watch with the subtitles on. It was also sad that they were printed within the frame, the bottom part of the letterbox is a much better location.

If anyone was wondering, this is definately an R rated film.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Far from Téchiné's best, March 7, 2009

By 

J. Martin (Upstate New York USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Witnesses (DVD)

I'm an André Téchiné fan, but this movie is disappointing. The only characters who are at all interesting are the two primary characters: Adrien (Michel Blanc), a bitter, unattractive middle-aged gay man, and Sara (Emmanuelle Béart), a mother who can't stand her newborn baby. Those two are interesting only because they're not typical leading roles. But all the characters, including those two, are so self-centered and wooden that I never for a minute cared what happened to any of them. The pivotal character of Manu (Johan Libéreau), the cute boy whom Adrian loves but who spurns him, is a shallow stereotype that could have been lifted whole from any of dozens of other movies.

The nascent AIDS epidemic that forms the backbone of the drama (the story is set in 1984-5) is handled clumsily and feels completely false, as if it was stuck on just to give a facade of significance to an empty story. In fact, the whole movie seems clumsy and poorly executed, as if everybody involved just wanted to get it over with.

The last straw for me was the idiotic casting as the American Steve of an actor who can barely speak English. That's not his fault--if Téchiné or the producers had cared about what they were doing, they could have hired a dialog coach to help him with the few lines he had to speak, instead of leaving him to founder on his own.

It makes me sad to see The Witnesses promoted as "from the acclaimed director of Wild Reeds," as it is on the DVD cover. Wild Reeds is a lovely, perfectly executed gem of a movie, as are My Favorite Season and other Téchiné masterpieces; The Witnesses is, as another reviewer said, a mess.