X
- 2017
- Not Rated
- The Orchard
- 2 h 23 m
- 2017
- Not Rated
- The Orchard
- 2 h 23 m
Summary 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. [Cannes]
Directed By: Robin Campillo
Written By: Philippe Mangeot, Robin Campillo
- 2017
- Not Rated
- The Orchard
- 2 h 23 m
- 2017
- Not Rated
- The Orchard
- 2 h 23 m
BPM (Beats Per Minute)
7.9
Where to Watch
Summary 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. [Cannes]
Directed By: Robin Campillo
Written By: Philippe Mangeot, Robin Campillo
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
84
92% Positive
24 Reviews
24 Reviews
8% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
84
92% Positive
24 Reviews
24 Reviews
8% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The beauty of BPM, and what connects its hard-fought, well-remembered battles to those of the present, lies in its willingness to embrace life in all its messiness, its refusal to pretend that the personal isn't also political and vice versa. You may well weep at the end, but you might also feel like snapping your fingers.
This film has what its title implies: a heartbeat. It is full of cinematic life.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 48 User Ratings
7.9
81% Positive
39 Ratings
39 Ratings
13% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
6% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 48 User Ratings
7.9
81% Positive
39 Ratings
39 Ratings
13% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
6% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
After living through this period of time and experiencing so many similar things that were depicted in this film, I have to say that this is the most realistic portrayal I've seen yet. Brought back so many memories. Fantastic film in every way! It was very difficult watching at times, but, a very important period of history that should not be forgotten. Easily one of the best films I have seen this year. Highly recommended!
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The movie’s a social history, a love story, and a call to arms. It’s very sad and it’s very good.
This is a Serious Movie that engages the intellect with compelling depictions of place, time and people. The ensemble cast is full of small characters with personalities that reveal themselves through political quirks and related creativity.
The film is historical yet its characters are fictional. Well-captured is the controlled chaos of some of the political actions.
In between raids, in between the meetings with ACT UP members and those who hold the keys to their possible survival, BPM is at its most intimate when observing the exchange of war stories.
Campillo doesn't edit for our comfort and we feel both the tragedy and the boredom of death.
“BPM” (Beats Per Minute) has a very moving love story surrounded with a dramatic and (don’t let this word scare you!) educational film about the very effective organization ACT UP, that was founded by Larry Kramer in New York in 1987. Two years later the French version of the ACT UP organization opened in 1989.
The main purpose of ACT UP was to take direct action to end the AIDS crisis and demonstrating for greater, faster access to experimental drugs.
The film opens with a demonstration at a drug company and leads into a local ACT UP meeting where the rules are explained to four newcomers such as snapping fingers instead of clapping or saving all debating for the meeting room, not in the hall where they go to have a cigarette. The meetings are attended by males, females, some being HIV+ and others negative, straights, ****, drug users, who have full blown AIDS.
The horror of what the government didn’t do for many years and the horror of watching vibrant people being decimated by a disease that is still killing people over 35 years later is shown with fingers being pointed at all, even with their infighting at meetings.
Intermingled with facts, figures, marches, condom and needle distributions, walls splattered with fake blood, a mother’s horror finding that she has been injecting her son, a hemophiliac, with infected bold provided by a hospital is a love story.
At that first meeting, where we observe the ACT UP group, one of the newcomers, Nathan, played by Arnaud Valois, HIV- negative, zeros in on Sean (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) a firebrand, militant leader who has AIDS. (An aside: as Nathan tells Sean about his first love the lover’s name is Arnaud!) We follow them as they at first fall in love and then dealing with Sean’s illness.
Most of the actors are new faces, such as Biscayart and Valois, which adds a little confusion at the beginning and it may take some time to realize that Marco, the hemophiliac, played by Theophile Ray, is the son of Helene, Catherine Vinatier. We meet Jeremie, Ariel Borenstein, ACT UP president Thibault, Antoine Reinartz, and other ACT UP members, plus a drug company CEO Samuel Churin, Sean’s mother Saadia Ben Taieb among a strong supporting cast.
The film, directed by Robin Campillo, who also co-wrote it with Philippe Mangeot, based up the former’s experiences as an ACT UP participant, is the French Oscar contender for the 2018 Best Foreign Language film.
“BPM” is one the best films ever made about AIDS but has a few minor faults and one major fault. The latter is the 2 hours and 44 minutes running time along with faulty editing and slow pace.
Being a French film the two sex scenes are vivid while the last twenty minutes are very moving. The problem is that there are too many unnecessary scenes such as 3 disco scenes when one would have sufficed, one too many marches, a beach scene that adds nothing to the love story and so on, taking away from getting to know some of the characters better.
“BMP” is a must see movie even though it may be hard to watch at times and the love story is completely believable!
Report
This is a perfect film for this time in history: a story that not just gets at how to combat institutional **** but institutional injustice. It shows how a loving community can come together and make their voices heard. Great acting, direction, writing, stakes and message.
Report
In the early 1990s, the AIDS epidemic in France reached its peak. Not indifferent Paris activists, members of the Act Up movement, organize street demonstrations, trying to resist the established silence in society and the reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to share research results.
Being in the past an activist of such a movement, director Robin Kampillo creates an almost documentary portrait of the era when the desire to live, not survive, was spoken out loud. The film does not just talk about the problem of HIV infection, it screams about it. Loud and clear. That is why it is more painful to perceive that little has changed in more than twenty years.
Kampillo, from the very first scene, throws us into the thick of events, allowing us to become a viewer of the debates about methods of dealing with the suppression of the issue. Here the are: a self-confident Sophie (Adele Haenel), criticizing Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) and Max (Félix Maritaud) for overly aggressive methods, and imagining himself the leader Thibault (Antoine Reinartz), for whom any appearance on TV is already a victory. In this audience there are also newcomers, among whom Nathan (Arnaud Valois), who care about the fate of AIDS patients, and they are ready to help in organizing any protest action. The director does not divide the guys on the right and the guilty, the voice of everyone is important here, after all, the main thing - what are you manifesting, and not with what.
If in "Philadelphia" Jonathan Demme show AIDS too Hollywood, and Gus Van Sant in "Milk" told the story of one person through the prism of the struggle for freedom, the French "Beats per minute" is closest to the British drama "Pride"(2014), about the campaign "Lesbians and **** Support the Miners". Kampillo succeeded in alternating important protests scenes and intimate episodes of the relationship between the two heroes. Neither long timing nor episodic publicism do not make it difficult to perceive the picture not only as a film-action, but also as a personal statement of a real participant of already distant events.
Report
Production Company
Les Films de Pierre,
France 3 Cinéma,
Page 114,
Memento Films Production,
FD Production,
Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC),
La Région Île-de-France,
Ciclic - Région Centre,
Memento Films,
Playtime,
Indéfilms 5,
Cofinova 13,
France Télévisions,
Canal+,
Ciné+,
Société des Producteurs de Cinéma et de Télévision (Procirep)
Release Date Oct 20, 2017
Duration 2 h 23 m
Rating Not Rated
Genres
Tagline Paris, early 1990s.
Website
http://www.120bpm-film.de/
Awards
CinEuphoria Awards
• 6 Wins & 13 Nominations
César Awards, France
• 6 Wins & 13 Nominations
Lumiere Awards, France
• 6 Wins & 6 Nominations
