I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival. This is the story of Maunu (Johan Libéreau), a young gay man from the country who is past high school but is not attending a university and instead arrives at his sister Julie's (Julie Depardieu) in Paris who is a struggling but talented opera singer and living in a dilapidated hotel where only hookers live. Cruising the city parks, Manhu befriends an older gay doctor Adrien (Michel Blanc) and develops a platonic relationship with him although Adrien is enamored with Manu. Adrien is best friends with Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart) who is a struggling writer and a new mother. Sarah's husband is Medhi (Sami Bouajila) who is a vice cop and the principal parent of their child who Sarah prefers to ignore and doesn't even want to be a mother. Mehi and Manu begin a surprising and unlikely relationship. This is a good movie but seems kind of sliced together in it's storyline. One good character is the streetwalker Sandra (Constance Pollé) who seems like is going to be a central character but then disappears from the film. Manu who has a wealthy benefactor in Adrien impossibly wears the same clothes throughout the film. Medhi and Manu and Medhi and Sarah have absolutely no on screen chemistry. AIDS is treated in 1984 as being so new that no one except the doctor Adrien has ever heard of it before and it's brand new on all the television newscasts yet AIDS was at that new phenomenon point in 1982 not 1984. The relationships between Manu and Adrien, Manu and Medhi, Manu and Julie are never properly developed because there is too much going on in this film. We never really understand how Adrien and Sarah became lifelong friends and it doesn't seem like they really care for each other anyway. Satah and Manu never have any kind of established friendship. Veteran filmmaker, director, writer André Téchiné directs and co-wrote the screenplay with Laurent Guyot and Viviane Zingg. Nice cinematography from Julien Hirsh. Michel Blanc is the commanding acting presence in this film. I would give this a 6.5 out of 10.
Review of The Witnesses
