By Chantal Hadley****Even from the opening credit sequence I was struck by the similarity between Philippe Sarde’s mournful violin music and Philip Glass’s violin concerto used in The Hours. Both films deal with one’s mortality, specifically with AIDS, and with the impact of AIDS on friends and family. Les Témoins manages to evoke the tremulous time in the mid-eighties when AIDS was beginning to be seen as an epidemic in the Western World. This film, as Sarah (played by Emmanuelle Béart) says, is a “testimony” to those times and to the individual suffering of youth confronted with death.Les Témoins tells the story of Manu, living in Paris with his sister. Befriended by a respected doctor, Adrien, Manu is introduced to Mehdi (a police officer) and his wife, Sarah (a writer). Manu is attracted to Mehdi, and they begin an affair which will change their lives and the lives of those around them.Téchiné himself defines Les Témoins as a “historical film… not a documentary”, and it is. The film touches upon a variety of pretty serious issues: mixed-race couples, same-sex couples, prostitution, STIs, post-natal depression and euthanasia. It’s not a fluffy film, but nor is it hard work. As a drama with a romantic backdrop it is more in the slightly uncomfortable vein of Deux Jours à Paris or L’Appartement than of Paris, Je T’Aime.As Téchiné says, he wanted to show the characters at “a certain moment of their lives… reveal aspects” of that moment, and then “leave the rest to the audience”. We are plunged into the characters’ lives at a moment just before a radical change, just as Manu and Mehdi literally plunge into the sea. That said, the changes are at times predictable, and their consequences somewhat cliché. In a manner reminiscent of Amélie, some of the major events are chopped up into tiny montages with fast music. This makes the film feel disjointed at times.
The best part of the film is the superb performance by Michel Blanc as the doctor who first falls in love with Manu, and supports him even after Manu becomes involved with Mehdi. Somehow, Blanc’s silent, melancholy glances just left of the lens have more emotion than the rest of the characters put together. I originally found it difficult to either have sympathy for or honestly like Manu. Johan Libéreau lacked chemistry with Depardieu, and I didn’t even realise Manu and Julie were related until she was introduced as his sister! On the other hand, Bouajila and Béart both put in solid performances, relating characters with internal demons and external pressures that prove hard to deal with. Téchiné says “perhaps loving Manu and bearing witness to his life makes the other protagonists stronger”, and even through moments where Manu seems unlikeable, grotesque or insensitive, by watching how others react, Téchiné succeeds in making all of us witnesses as well.
Review: The Witnesses
