Customer Reviews

The Witnesses

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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

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.

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.

Andre Techine's "The Witnesses" was a moving film for me on several levels. The cast and acting are generally superb. The story line which takes us back to the early 1980s and the beginning of the AIDS crisis, is probably (and disturbingly) an accurate reflection of the times which continued to echo the sexual openess of the 1970s and self-absorption of the 1980s.

Still, as one reviewer points out, there is a cold-blooded perspective that would appear to be uniquely French that made me somewhat uncomfortable with the interactions of the film's characters. For people who are supposed to care for each other to the point of obsession, there is precious little affection on offer. This starts with the female lead's complete lack of interest in her new enfant. This same character (a writer) eventually sees opportunity in a tragedy that affects her family and friends. With an American cultural background, it's hard to accept this kind of hard-hearted "moving on."

As for the gay/bisexual characters who are often at the center of the film, they are sympathetic at times, but ruthless and seemingly uncaring at others. Another reflection of the times? Maybe, but I couldn't say it's very close to what I remember of the period in the U.S.
In any event, it's an interesting film with a distinct point of view and serves as a reminder of the ongoing tragedy of AIDS and the huge loss of young lives since the disease first appeared nearly 30 years ago.

Awesome director, great social issue, touching, overall a GREAT movie worth checking out. Thats all Im going to say so check it out for yourself !

I think of myself as someone who is so cinema aware, but this brilliant film escaped my attention until just this week. My title for the review is sort of a double entendre as the film reaches such heights of excellence and of course there are scenes up in a private plane that figures in as well. I had watched this movie now twice and it is so good on so many levels. In terms of the acting, there in no weak link. The way it was shot in both Paris and in the countryside is so rich and adds such a texture. The music is perfect, creates moods and the songs of that era give it extra ambience. It deals with the then sad affairs of AIDS during the early period with its hopelessness. The character of Manu, who is stricken with the plague, is played so brilliantly by the young actor Johan Libereau that you have a view into the phsyche of the tragedy of those times of someone dying of AIDS. The sparkle he shows earlier in the film before he is dealt this cruel blow is not there any longer, the boy has become so consumed with the expectation of death that he has skipped many decades to become and old man even if not chronologically.Early in the film and under happier circumstances Manu meets Adrien, an older gay men who he is not sexually attracted to, but feels a connection to as a friend. That role is wonderfully played by Michel Blanc who is short and bespeckled and frustrated in his own words that the only gay taboo is age. Adrien's maturity keeps most gay men at arm's length. The irony is that his inability to get laid makes him one of the lucky ones who does not contract this new terrifying disease. He makes all kinds of facial expression that indicate how jealous he is of the younger men, and his anger boils over that gay life is such a youth culture. Adrien is friends with a young couple Sarah and Mehdi, and they are portrayed beautifully by the actor Emmanuelle Beart who has such a haunting beauty and I knew her from elsewhere but couldn't place the film in my mind, but now know its "Eight Women" and the actor Sami Bouajila who I know from an equally brilliant but far less tragic film "The Adventures of Felix" We see him go from being youthful and having a magnetic sexual appeal in "Felix" to being a bit more grown up and some lines across his brow but when he smiles that sexiness and charisma just commands the screen. He is that man who so fascinates his writer wife Sarah and he becomes the lover of Manu, who is equally unable to resist him especially when he saves Manu's life in a swimming accident which draws them both erotically together accidentally. Of course as the story progresses and Adrien notices the tell tale signs of the new tragic plague on Manu's chest, the lesions, Manu isolates himself from Mehdi and retreats. This revelation of Manu's dire circumstances force Mehdi to confront his own possible brush with this nightmare, until he is elated to discover that both he and his wife are spared as their tests come back negative. Manu, who has retreated from Mehdi, thinking Mehdi would be upset by his haggard appearance reaches out to Adrien, who is also a doctor, and a researcher in the war on AIDS. Manu moves into Adrien's posh home and Adrien who could never attain Manu as a lover is now in the position to be his caregiver and he grabs the chance. Adrien explodes at Manu earlier in the film before they are aware of Manu's prognosis that he would chose Mehdi over him. He even brutally attacks Manu in a campground where Manu has taken a job outside Paris and also to have some down low encounters with Mehdi, who is a vice squad cop and got him the employment. Adrien does everything in his power to prevent the cop from seeing Manu, it seems as it it is twofold, he is furious at the cop (Mehdi) that he bedded Manu and had a lengthy affair, and also following the wishes of Manu who wants his caregiver to bar Mehdi from his life. I think also Manu, with his seemingly poor self image figures Mehdi only wanted him for sex so what is the point now? Add into the equation that due to the fact that Sarah and Mehdi have conducted an open relationship it comes out that Mehdi and Manu were lovers. Sarah, who also sought a blood test around the time her husband did, is fascinated by the love affiar between the two men and hopes it will help her writers block. Mehdi fearing for his career and also maybe some guilt over how Manu is doomed and he escaped demands she not write this, but she is determined to go ahead. One final scene with Sarah and Manu at Adrien's place shows Sarah and Manu alone talking about things and Manu asks her to kiss him which she bravely, for that time, obliges. She mentions how that kiss prompted her to go for her artistic dreams to record this love story come what may. She previously wrote children's books which were not fulfilling and she comments that she does not find children interesting. Manu of course passes away as Adrien is given at Manu's request the sad task to hasten the end of his life with an overdose of tranquilizers. The scene between Manu's sister who is also an opera singer, and I realize I have not mentioned, and his Mom at her country place is quite touching where they go after the death to console one another. Adrien is along bringing the sister. Just when you think the sad movie is about to end with the passing of Manu there is one more adventure to be played in the sun. After Adrien goes to the same park and bushes where he struck up a friendship with Manu years ago, he meets a handsome young American Canadian guy who is not put off my his lack of height, or age, or desperation and the two go to Adrien's place wher Adrien is just thinking he is doing the tall sexy man a favor by putting him up in Paris for a few nights is drawn into a romantic adventure. The young man invites himself sweetly into Adrien's bedroom, instead of sleeping in the guest room. This is no hustle or worse but a young guy who maybe had an experience with someone older and it is Adrien who is the suprised lucky fellow. The final scene shows them in the same country place which played a part in the earlier happier scene before Manu got ill, and Sarah and Mehdi and their one year old baby, and Adrien and his American pal all take a nice cruise out on a boat. The beauty of the photography is so special, a movie of such variety of moods and locales that you feel you know all there is know about these people. The richness and layers of this film enchanted me and made me aware of just how lucky we are that we live in a world today where AIDS is no longer the death sentence it once was. I am not aware if there were any Oscar or Cannes or Golden Globe or other bodies who recognized the extraordinary gifts of this film, but if not they should have at the very least applauded the noteworthy performance of Johan Libereau as Manu. I want to see what else this gifted young man has done. This movie has now gone to the within the list of my top ten favorite films of all time. Don't miss out on this treasure, there are not many movie experiences that come within miles of being this good. I also want to finally see what I have heard is a brilliant film " Wild Reeds" by this amazing director Andre Techine. Actually it would be a "crime" if Andre Techine has not been given a nomination or an award or two or twenty for this movie as well, for it is his golden baby. I see myself watching this many many times and each time will be as glorious as the first. If one wants another film equally good about AIDS especially of those dreadful early years of a true plague I highly recommend "And The Band Played On" and "Parting Glances" and of course "Longtime Companion" We can not bring back our dear friends, some who were just so close to being around for the cocktail of the late 90s, some who tragically died in their 20s or 30s, but when I see these films they truly honor the memory of these many many lovely men and women I lost and how brave they were in confronting their mortality with such grace. Why them, and not us, we are agonized with our survival and their not having a chance at a full life? There would never have been an cocktail of AIDS drugs without the harranging and unrelenting voices of ACT UP and other AIDS organizations that demanded not only the drugs be created but that governments should help those unable to pay the astounding costs thus creating ADAP programs in the states and the District of Columbia. These drug prices have stayed extremely high and I will be delighted when the patents expire and it will be legal to bring onto the market generic versions to help save more lives, with less greed involved. Health Care is a Human Right and should have nothing to do with the making of vast profits. I hope that I see this dream happen in my lifetime in the USA !!!

****1/2

"The Witnesses" is a provocative and moving French drama set in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

It's 1983, and a young gay man by the name of Manu (Johan Libereau) has come to Paris, where his sister, Julie (Julie Depardieu), an aspiring opera singer, lives in a hotel known to be a hotbed of prostitutes. Almost immediately, Manu enters into a platonic relationship with Adrien (Michel Blanc), a middle-aged doctor who falls in love with Manu despite the fact that the young man sees Adrien as just a friend. Adrien introduces Manu to a longtime friend, Sarah (Emmanuelle Beart), a writer of children's books, and Mehdi (Sami Bouajila), her husband who works as a vice cop in the city. Eventually, Manu taps into Mehdi's latent attraction to men and the two strike up a tentative, secret relationship. But before long a mysterious and deadly disease has arrived on the scene, changing the lives of these characters - and of countless others in the world - in ways they could never possibly have imagined.

Even though "The Witnesses" deals with a very grim and serious subject, its primary focus always rests on the characters and the complex relationships that define them. Written by Andre Techine, Laurent Guyot and Viviane Zingg and directed by Techine, "The Witnesses" draws us into the lives of these people precisely because it refuses to make an undue fuss over them and how they choose to live their lives. In fact, much of the narrative feels spontaneous and unformed, almost as if the writers were making it up as they go along. The result is that the incidents don't feel contrived or forced, and we are never tempted to question their credibility. In fact, the filmmakers often seem to go out of their way to avoid doing the obvious, often building up to scenes (a dying man's trip to his sister's opera performance, a final meeting between estranged lovers, a maudlin, drawn-out death scene) that never end up taking place - just as in real life.

The characters, moreover, are richly drawn, with each emerging as a nicely balanced combination of weaknesses and strengths. Manu, for example, is basically a happy-go-lucky kid who's just beginning to find his way in life and who demonstrates that he has a tremendous capacity for joie de vive and emotional tenderness - even if his youth and inexperience occasionally lead him to hurt others in ways that he doesn`t yet fully comprehend. It becomes doubly tragic, then, when the fates demand such a harsh, unforgiving punishment from him. Sarah is a recent mother who admits quite frankly that she appears not to have much of a maternal instinct, looking upon her newborn more as a hindrance than as a blessing. Her husband, Mehdi, is a mass of contradictions as he tries to come to terms with his bisexuality, falling further in love with Manu, even while raiding dens of iniquity in his on-duty hours. Finally, Adrien is the lonely older man whose wisdom born of experience ultimately gives strength and guidance to others.

The performances are uniformly excellent throughout, and Techine's direction can be either down-to-earth or lyrical depending on which of those two seemingly contradictory tones a particular scene calls for.

"The Witnesses" is a sad movie but not a depressing one, for its canny recognition that humans have an endless capacity for regeneration and hope even in the face of unimaginable suffering carries us beyond the tragic nature of its subject matter.

Andre Techine is a consecrated French director who has bestowed us majuscule masterworks. The main focus in his films turns around the complexities of the human soul, acting and reacting before the rules.

And this solid script gains a profound respect due the multiple issues involved. The main personage is Manu, a young in his early twenties, who arises unsaid passions in a doctor, a close friend of the family (magisterially performed by Michel Blanc, who evidently steals the show in this movie) who observes how that his love for Manu has no future. On the other hand, we have a police agent who (after an unexpected accident) suddenly realizes his affective universe includes the love for that boy. (And the irony is that he works into an unity that faces against the moral and the good customes). His wife is a free thinker woman who admits the infidelity in the couple, recently mother.

When the AIDS appears and captures Manu as one of its victims (we are in 1985) all a web of unsentimental situations will derivate since from this fact.

A film that invites you to think and rethink about the complex affective universe of the human beings.

This is the story of what happened to a few lives in France when AIDS was first diagnosed and the world struggled to understand this new mystery illness that was so devastating.

It follows the life of a young man, fresh from the countryside as he discovers Paris, life and sex. He becomes entangled with a married police detective from the vice squad, and plationically with an older doctor. The doctor realizes he is an early AIDS victim and tries his best to keep him alive. The police detective struggles with knowing he might have caught the disease and even passed it to his wife.

It is a fast-paced and well-done movie and clearly recalls many of the horrors associated with the earliest forms of this dreadful disease, when no medications were sufficient to control it.

Perfection. Awesome. Sexy. Surprising. Heartbreaking. Revelatory. Witty. Cherishable. Astonishing. Revealing. True. Brutal. Funny. Sexy. Sad. True. Sexy. Sad. True. Perfection.