120 Battements par minute (Beats Per Minute, 2017)
Directed by Robin Campillo
I saw “Beats Per Minute” last night and it was truly incredible. From the get-go, it tried to show two sides of the AIDS Crisis: one, from the perspective of the activist group and another, from the individual. It is such an amazing film for people who don’t know as much about the epidemic or ACT UP, and its teaching moments fit into the narrative nicely.
Recently, I’ve seen two films, this one and “Dont Worry He Won’t Get Far On Foot” that showed men dying of HIV/AIDS. I genuinely have never seen the AIDS body represented accurately in a film in recent years, but BPM did it. In “Dont Worry” the AIDS body didn’t change. There was no Karposi Sarcoma, weightloss, IV injections, blindness, deafness, or sickness. But BPM showed everything. My favorite scenes were the ones in the apartment after Sean’s death— the dressing of his body, the visits, who chose to witness the body, how they decided they would perform his political funeral.
I’m so in love with this movie and want everyone to see it.
