BPM (Beats Per Minute) Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the damned thing but since it had won the César of the Best French movie of the year, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, I was really impressed by the damned thing, that’s for sure. Through the years, I have seen a few US movies dealing with the AIDS pandemic but it was pretty neat to finally see a French movie on the subject. Indeed, when I was growing up in France in the 90’s, it was constantly in the media and I think my generation has been pretty much traumatized as we will forever link sex with sickness and death. This movie focused actually more on what happened before. Indeed, it took about 10 years for the French government to finally take the necessary actions but, in the meantime, 1000’s of people actually died and that’s what the people in Act Up Paris were fighting for or fighting against. At first, you might wonder why they were so passionate or so fanatic about this cause but the last act during which Sean died made it pretty clear. Indeed, behind all their witty jokes, even though most of them were quite young, they would still die fairly soon if they didn’t get the right help so they were actually more desperate than passionate. It was also quite interesting that most of the duration actually took place during their weekly meetings. You might wonder why the makers made this choice but I think it was a way to show this group all together while they were sharing not only their ideas and thoughts but also their feelings about their situation and their individual and collective struggle. The only downside was that the whole thing was a little bit messy. Indeed, while at some point they finally really focused on Nathan, it seemed that they were never really sure if he should be handled as a main character. Anyway, to conclude, I really loved the realistic approach, it was some really fascinating material and the damned thing is definitely worth a look.