Review by
John Bennett
Directed by: Robin Campillo
Starring: Nahuel Perez Biscayart, Arnaud Valois, Adele Haenel,
Antoine Reinartz
There is a specific kind of satisfaction to be had from watching a movie
about a social justice struggle. In movies where characters fight for labour
rights, for environmental protection, for gender equality etc., an audience
feels surrogate solidarity with the characters as they win a fight against
an unjust system. Still, this sort of movie often falls into the trap of
being on-the-nose and of oversimplifying the complexities of whatever issue
they deal with, rendering them enjoyable but forgettable.
French writer/director Robin Campillo is perhaps best remembered for
having collaborated on the screenplay for Laurent Cantet’s
The Class, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2008. Though
The Class is good, I would venture to categorise it as a
worthwhile but forgettable film. Campillo’s new film,
120 Beats Per Minute, which chronicles activists’ struggles at the height of the AIDS epidemic,
happily avoids such traps. It’s a compelling work of social engagement
that’s also a generous, rapturous, cinematic experience - one that you’ll
revisit regularly in your mind for years to come.
Campillo’s excellent film details the inner-workings of the Paris-based
chapter of ACT UP, an advocacy group dedicated to raising awareness of AIDS,
encouraging safe sexual practices, and staging non-violent protests against
the French government and large pharmaceutical companies, both of which
callously spurned working to find meaningful solutions to a disease that was
ravaging the LGBT community.
120 Beats Per Minute immerses us in the technicalities of the
group’s execution of ambitious protests. An intro scene features ACT UP
leaders orienting new members (which the audience members tacitly become)
regarding their rules and practices. One guiding idea is that regardless of
one’s HIV status, in the eyes of the public, you must consider yourself HIV
positive to be a member - a rule that immediately makes ACT UP allies out of
the film’s audience as it goes on to explore the group’s deliberations, the
creative protests themselves, and the race-against-the-clock desperation
experienced by many ACT UP members afflicted with the disease. As the film
progresses, we get a greater understanding of the formidable institutions
that the group is up against, a greater understanding of its members’ own
internal ideological differences, and a greater understanding of the
personal lives of characters whom we first meet only at a glance in the
large classroom that serves as the group’s meeting place.
In crafting the narrative of 120 Beats Per Minute, Campillo takes a few risks that have big emotional payoffs. The first is
that it’s more about the pain of injustice that necessitates a struggle than
the struggle itself. In a lot of social issue movies, even the best ones (12 Angry Men, The Organizer, The Magdalene Sisters), the final reel depicts some substantial moral victory - but the climax
of Campillo’s film, as may be expected in a drama about AIDS, is the death
of one of the principal characters. What sets
120 Beats Per Minute apart from other social issue films is
that it doesn’t seek to give the audience the satisfaction of witnessing the
fruits of a social justice victory; instead showing that the struggle has to
be fought indefinitely.
The other narrative feat pulled off by Campillo’s film is its seemingly
seamless inclusion of both macrocosmic and intimate storylines. At its
outset, 120 Beats Per Minute appears as though it will
strictly recount the story of the ACT UP movement as a group, a
straightforward chronicle of its motivations, its strategies, its
infighting, its tragedy, and its inspiring tenacity. Imperceptibly,
organically, the film hones some of its focus on the budding romance between
Sean (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) and Nathan (Arnaud Valois), two
of the group’s members. The inclusion of both general and precise sets of
narratives gives 120 Beats Per Minute great emotional scope.
Its fight-the-power depiction of urgent activism and its touching, deeply
romantic love story exist somewhat separately, but the two threads play off
of each other in brilliant ways. In one scene that skillfully blends both
stories, Sean and Nathan share personal stories during a 10-minute break at
a contentious ACT UP meeting. The meeting is filmed in long and medium takes
that naturalistically capture the collaborative nature of the meeting. In
the same room, Campillo transforms the scene into a gentle, personal
dialogue between the new lovers, filming them in tight two-shots that shut
out the rest of the meeting. He goes back to showing us the big picture when
the meeting resumes. This combination of narrative modes richly diversifies
the film and reminds us of the essential human heart of ACT UP’s
mission.
In many ways, 120 Beats Per Minute shares the
documentary-inspired style of The Class. The ACT UP meetings are executed with a high degree of naturalism.
Campillo's bobbing, hand-held images pair well with audio that seeks to
capture the cacophonous shouting of ACT UP members voicing disparate (if
equally cogent) opinions. The group’s creative protests are executed the
same way. Yet every now and then, Campillo punctuates the romance and drama
with highly stylised scenes of the members of the group at raves. These
poetic moments seem to exist outside of reality; their ethereal electronic
soundscapes, their expressive use of light and shadow, and their exuberant
choreography all underscore the significance of the work the group is doing
and the intensity of the passions the characters feel. In the film’s
breathtakingly beautiful finale, Campillo takes the film’s final
heartbreaking protest and creatively blends it into a final rave scene. It’s
a sequence that captures and syncs the essences of the struggle for justice,
of personal tragedy, and of love for filmmaking into a harmonious, rapturous
finale. Even writing this, it’s hard for me not to tear up at the hopeful,
tragic, subtly intense perfection of 120 Beats Per Minute’s final moments.
Aided by its smart construction and light stylisation,
120 Beats Per Minute paints a portrait of a movement with a
wide-ranging palette of emotions. When certain members of ACT UP turn on a
member who is a mother of an infected son, we feel the frustration felt on
both sides of the argument; when ACT UP throws fake blood in a
pharmaceutical office, we feel the protestors’ frightened elation; when they
storm a school to give safe-sex info to students, we feel anger at one
teacher’s shocked, bitter response and joy at another teacher’s gladly
yielding the floor (“Listen to this kids, it’s important,” she says
immediately); when Sean and Nathan begin their romance, we feel the slow
burn of their passion; and when characters die, as some inevitably will
under these heartbreaking circumstances, we grieve along with their friends
and family. Deceptively rich, eternally important,
120 Beats Per Minute is without a doubt a film you should seek
out and pay attention to.
120 Beats Per Minute is on Netflix
UK/ROI now.