120 BEATS PER MINUTE/ BPM/ 120 BATTEMENTS PAR MINUTE

France, 2017, 143 minutes, Colour.
Nahuel Perez Biscayart, Arnaud Valois, Adele Haenel, Antoine Reinartz, Felix Maritaud, Ariel Borenstein.
Directed by Robin Campillo.

This is a film about AIDS.

It is a French film, screening at several festivals, winning awards including several Cesar awards in France, for the film and for performances.

The setting is the 1980s in France. It is the period when the public, especially in Western countries, was apprehensive about the rise of AIDS and its spread. It is a period when celebrities were revealed as both gay and as infected by AIDS, especially film star, Rock Hudson. There were demonstrations about AIDS and the role of government in responding to the health situation. There was a lot of study going on, research for cures for AIDS and some exploitation by pharmacy companies.

This film opens with a focus on a French group of protesters, ACT UP. They are quite vehement at their meetings, allowing each member to speak but being controlled by the facilitator, agreement being expressed by vigorous snapping of fingers. The film audience is invited to listen to the points being made by the speakers, the passion with which they speak, the effect of the infection and the consequent illness, issues of sexual orientation and behaviour.

The group also goes on various demonstrations, especially targeting politicians as well as invasion of the offices of the pharmaceutical companies, with containers with fake blood which they throw at parliamentarians or throw on the walls of the offices.

Some of the protesters work on organisation for protest and some kind of control. Others are impulsive, especially the young, causing repercussions with the police, with the media and public opinion.

At the initial meeting, the key central characters are introduced so that the audience sees them, hears them, is able to identify with them and/or to criticise them.

One of the most vigorous protesters is Marco (Nahuel Perez Biscayart), a young man from Chile present in Paris with some care from his mother. He is befriended by a newcomer, Nathan, and the two fall in love, living together, working on the protests. The audience sees quite a number of the characters, especially in their dealings with Marco and Nathan.

Eventually, Marco succumbs to the infection, becomes quite ill, hospitalised, then living at home with the care of Nathan and his mother.

Marco’s death and funeral bring the characters together, some kind of reconciliation, still some kind of antagonism between the various members of the protest.

While the film recreates its period, the audience is watching it with the knowledge of the history of AIDS in the succeeding decades, the toll that it took in terms of death and illness, the advances made in medical help, the overcoming of prejudice against AIDS and fear of any blood contact, the commitment of support groups and human rights.

1. Acclaim and awards? 21st-century themes? Retrospective on the end of the 20th century? The French experience of AIDS?

2. The title?

3. The recreation of the period, friends in the 1980s and 1990s, look, costumes, decor? The musical score?

4. The reality of AIDS from the 1980s? The impact worldwide? North America? France? Fears and uncertainties? The effect, health, psychological effects, the unknown origins, little known about the illness itself, the symptoms of the illness, disfigurements, diarrhoea, weakness? The deaths? The young dying? The further developments in medical treatment?

5. The impact on world awareness, the illness, an epidemic, mainly in men, homosexuals? Men and women with blood disorders, transfusions, haemophilia? Addicts and shared needles?

6. The screenplay and issues of government responsibility, pharmaceutical companies? The responsibilities of the community? Individuals?

7. The significance of protests? Of ACT UP in France? The rights for protest, the manner of protests? Issues of violence and non-violence? The spattering of blood? The Seine and blood red? Personal protest? Group protest?

8. The film as a combination of protests and personal stories?

9. The emotional response to all concerned, the uncertainties of AIDS, the illness, the gay men, the gay women, relationships, love, grief?

10. The protests, ACT UP? The group meetings, the intensity of the interventions, the age of the people present? The rules about intervening, snapping fingers for affirmation? The leaders and the control? Decisions? Protests and impulses and their consequences? Members of parliament, speeches, experiencing violence, spattered by fake blood? The pharmaceutical offices, the officials, the walls and the blood? The role of the police, violence, arrests?

11. The individuals and their stories? The members at the protest meetings, their interventions, intensity? Nathan and his being welcomed? Marco and his being young, his mother present? The women present? Sean and his interventions, outspoken? Thibault, his control? Sophie and her role?

12. Nathan and Sean, liking each other, the beginning of the relationship, Sean and his background from Chile, the presence of his mother? Love for Nathan? The meetings, the sexual encounter, the consequences? Sean with AIDS? Nathan not infected?

13. Sean and his getting weaker, going to hospital, his angers and having to cope, his being taken home, the presence of his mother, Nathan and the sexual experience? Giving the morphine? Sean’s death?

14. Nathan, his role in Sean’s death? Sean’s mother, laying him out, the friends all arriving, preparing the body for the funeral? The funeral itself? The individuals and their grief? Communal grief?

15. Nathan, spending the night with Tybalt, his way of dealing with the grief?

16. The story of the past, its relevance at the time, the continuing influence into the 21st-century?