Start of an era
Do you remember October 1984? Three babies died in Brisbane that month from AIDS-related illnesses after receiving transfusions from blood donated by a gay man who didn’t know he was infected. The resultant media hysteria meant suddenly everyone in Australia knew about the impending “gay plague” and our community reeled in the face of open hostility and the mounting death toll among our friends.
André Téchiné’s new movie The Witnesses (Les Témoins) starts with the European summer of 1984 and ends a year later. Manu (Johan Libéreau), a young gay man, arrives in Paris and moves in with his unemployed opera singer sister, who’s living in a cheap room in a brothel. He’s saved a bit of money and intends to spend the summer enjoying himself – his friendly exuberance makes it easy for him to find sex and good times. Cruising in a park at night, he befriends an older gay man, an eminent doctor named Adrien (veteran French star Michel Blanc), who falls for him although they never have sex.
Manu might as well wear a label on his forehead saying “potential AIDS victim”, but Téchiné has more on his mind than Manu’s story. Adrien’s friend Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart), a successful children’s novelist married to vice squad cop Mehdi (Sami Bouajila), has just had her first baby and the couple aren’t coping very well with new parenthood. He’s overworked, she’s suffering from writer’s block, and even their different class and ethnic backgrounds are a factor.
One weekend when the four of them are staying at Sarah’s mother’s seaside house, Mehdi saves Manu from drowning and his life changes. The two men embark on a passionate affair and, despite Mehdi and Sarah’s open relationship, he doesn’t tell her about this first gay lover. Manu, however, tells Adrien, who reacts furiously at this betrayal. Nevertheless, when the young man succumbs to a new mystery illness that Adrien has been investigating, he becomes his physician.
Téchiné’s headlong pacing mirrors the urgency of that era, when police raids targeted gays, prostitutes and drug users, and there was a lot of anxious waiting for blood test results. As usual, Téchiné avoids sentimentality, refusing to linger over sad moments.
Sami Bouajila was in the news last week when the Best Actor award at Cannes went to the ensemble cast of Indigènes, which was headed by Bouajila. Queer movie fans would remember him affectionately in the title role of Funny Felix (2000), as a HIV-positive gay man whose joie de vivre enriches the lives of all around him. This time Libéreau has that role and, though his performance at first seems a little forced, he grows into the part with powerful effect.
Two decades after the epidemic’s onset, movies like this are important for the gay community, lest we forget, but don’t see it because it’s “important”. Conversely, don’t avoid it because it might be depressing – it’s not. TheWitnesses is the 20th feature film by a great French director, and 64-year-old Téchiné is at the top of his game.
The Witnesses screens as part of the Sydney Film Festival at the State Theatre on Saturday 9 June at 4pm and Tuesday 12 June at 2:35pm.
