Director Robin Campillo draws on own personal experience in his emotional exploration of homosexuality and the AIDS epidemic in France during the 1990s.
Director: Robin Campillo
Starring: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Arnaud Valois and Adéle Haenel
Running time: 143 mins
It’s Paris in the late 80s, early 90s and the battle against the AIDS crisis is being waged. A group of young people who are all part of the advocacy group ACT UP (named after their counterparts in New York) are desperately trying to make their voices heard and save lives. The film follows both people already diagnosed with the disease and those who are fighting to support them, battling against a world which is unprepared and unwilling to accept what is happening. In the style of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, this is far from easy viewing.
120 BPM is the average resting heart rate for a human. Essentially this is what it means to be alive. Opening at the beginning of the one of the group’s meetings, we are introduced to Sean, Thibault, Sophie, Max, Jérémie, Nathan and others, all doing their best to live life to the full, but also help others to realise the terrible consequences of not taking precautions against HIV. There are protests and campaigns, bags of (fake) blood are thrown, pharmaceutical companies are held accountable of the lack of action in getting treatment out there.
As the names rolled across, everyone sat still, as if mesmerised and shaken
I know that the film is a fictionalised version of real events, but the drama is so gritty and so powerfully played out I find myself being swept up in it and feeling way too many emotions. Against a backdrop of politics and protests, Sean and Nathan fall in love. The heavy reality of Sean carrying the virus, while Nathan does not, impacts their romance in a way that is painful to watch. Coming from different backgrounds and different situations, they have found each other, but their future is uncertain and heavily burdened. We might all be aware now of the terrible effects that AIDS has, and had, but without a context, it can be easy to compartmentalise it and view it in terms of facts and statistics. The people now have a face and a heart and lives that can be realised.
Nahuel Pérez Biscayart gives an incredible performance as Sean and Arnaud Valois also deserves a special mention. The power of the film was truly summed up in the audience’s reaction to the end credits. As the names rolled across, everyone sat still, as if mesmerised and shaken. It almost felt as if we were all observing a two-minute silence in memory of the people who really lived through this. I can’t praise this film enough – and strongly urge you to go and see it, however difficult a watch it is.
Did you know? Campillo and co-screenwriter Philippe Mangeot drew on their personal experiences with ACT UP in developing the story. One scene was also based on Campillo's experience with the AIDS epidemic, as he said "I've dressed up a boyfriend on his death".
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