120 battements par minute 2017 | Boys in movies [BiM]

120 battements par minute 2017
– 2h 20 min | Drama | 16 November 2017 (Hungary)

Storyline:

Early 1990s. With AIDS having already claimed countless lives for nearly ten years, Act up-Paris activists multiply actions to fight general indifference. Nathan, a newcomer to the group, has his world shaken up by Sean, a radical militant, who throws his last bits of strength into the struggle.

User review:

‘120 Battements par minute’ is about the protest movement Act Up Paris, which tried to put aids on the map as a major problem. The film is set about thirty years ago, when there was no efficient treatment yet against aids. There is at least one other film about this era and about this theme: ‘Dallas Buyers Club’. Both films show how desperate aids patients were to get their hands on promising new medication. Both films show what the disease can do to a human being. Both films show the ignorance and prejudice of that period.

It movie starts by showing the weekly meetings of the Act Up members, who more often than not embark on endless discussions about something as mundane as the slogan for a campaign poster. They also try to disturb official meetings, and invade a pharmaceutical company which refuses to release the test results of a certain kind of drug.

This last story element offers some dramatic possibilities. This becomes clear when, in one scene, the managers of the pharmaceutical company are invited to explain their policy to the Act Up members. Instead of showing this exchange of differing opinions, and thus creating some much-needed dramatic development, the story moves away from the pharmaceutical company to the experiences of one individual Act Up member. Suddenly, he becomes the protagonist, and we see him struggling with the disease.

Director: Robin Campillo
Writers: Robin Campillo, Philippe Mangeot (collaboration on screenplay)
Stars: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Arnaud Valois, Adèle Haenel
Country: France
Language: French
Release Date: 16 November 2017 (Hungary)
Filming Locations: Paris, France

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6135348/