The Witnesses
Encyclopedia
The Witnesses is a 2007 French drama film directed by André Téchiné
, starring Michel Blanc
, Sami Bouajila
, Emmanuelle Béart
and Johan Libéreau
. The film is set in Paris in 1984, the lives of a closely knit group of friends is disrupted with the sudden outbreak of AIDS
epidemic. They are witnesses to how happiness has changed.
Meanwhile, Sarah’s close friend Adrien, a middle-aged gay doctor, meets Manu, a carefree young man, at a cruising ground. Manu is not sexually attracted to Adrien and they do not have sex, but strike an emotional friendship. Manu is happy with the friendship and becomes Adrien’s companion and his student of life’s finer things. Wildly in love with his shallow, narcissistic protégé, Adrien is shrewd enough not to push too hard, but there is an element of masochism in his abject devotion.
Manu, who has recently arrived to Paris from a provincial town in the south of France, shares a space with his sister Julie, while she struggles to affirm herself as an opera singer. They live in a cheap hotel that is a center of prostitution. This does not bother Manu, and he has a friendly relationship with Sandra, a prostitute. The hotel is under scrutiny by Mehdi, who leads the police force’s vice division.
Through Adrien, Manu meets Sarah and Mehdi. The group of friends get together at Sarah’s mother’ summerhouse in the Calanques of Marseille. One afternoon, when Mehdi and Manu go swimming in a remote cove, Mehdi saves Manu from drowning and, while tugging him to shore and administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, becomes aroused. Later, when Manu makes a pass at Mehdi, he responds, and they embark on a secret, no-strings-attached love affair. They meet at the holiday camping site outside Paris, where Manu now works as a cook.
When Manu confesses to Adrien that he has been having sex with Mehdi, Adrian is furious and hits Manu. After the fight, Adrian discovers spots on Manu's skin; it turns out that he has AIDS. Sarah tries to write a novel, and as a result Mehdi leaves temporarily to stay at his parents with the baby. Adrien becomes a leader in a medical crusade against AIDS, while meanwhile privately taking on Manu's treatment. Mehdi also does not shun his friend when he hears the news, although he is terrified that he has AIDS and cannot bring himself to tell his wife. He wants to see Manu, but Manu does not want to see him in the terrible state he is in. By contrast, Adrien is safe as his relationship with Manu was more companion-based than sexual.
Desperate to see his former lover, Mehdi forces his way into the camping site. Manu shows him his gun, with which he will commit suicide when his illness gets worse. Mehdi secretly takes it with him and throws it in the Seine
Mehdi is relieved that he has not been infected. Sarah has not been infected either and they reconcile. Manu’s health deteriorates and he commits suicide with pills supplied by Adrien for this purpose.
Before he passes away, Manu uses a tape recorder to dictate his life for others to hear of. Sarah is inspired by the events as they have transpired so far and, once he is gone, listens to the tapes and begins writing a tale (for grown-ups) of it. She is free of her writer's block. Medhi is a bit concerned his life will become gossip, but Sarah assures him she has changed the names in the story.
A year later Sarah, Mehdi, Adrien and his new companion Steve, a young American, return to the summerhouse on the Riviera to celebrate Sarah and Medhi's child's birthday
I prefer people to be moved by Manu when he runs, climbs a tree or burst out laughing than when he is sick. For me, that would be akin to taking the audience hostage and I reject that. But I don’t reject emotion itself- rather I shift it around instead of placing it where it becomes predictable. I hope audiences find Manu moving in the upbeat scenes in the first half of the film: It is good time shared, not compassion in bad times, that makes good friends”. As Sarah’s mother says in the film it’s a miracle being alive. And it is this sense of miracle that I wanted to conclude and open the film, broadening the horizon by revisiting spaces that Manu has inhabited and rediscovering them without him, with another character traveling through. Perhaps loving Manu and bearing witnesses to his life makes the other protagonist stronger".
, regular composer in Téchiné's films. The sound track includes an eclectic mix of artist and styles like
reports that 85% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 48 reviews. The critical consensus is: " Andre Techine successfully weaves five gripping stories in an engaging and realistic film about the early days of the AIDS epidemic." Metacritic
, which assigns a weighted mean
rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 75 based on 15 reviews.
Jan Stuart of Newsday
wrote, "André Techiné's The Witnesses is one of the finest fiction-film accounts of a free yet frightful moment in time, when the relaxing sexual liberties of the previous decade were being squeezed by the onset of an unforgiving new virus." In Variety
Deborah Young commented,"What the characters in The Witnesses -- and the audience -- pay testimony to in André Téchiné's urgent, compassionate, and ultimately optimistic French drama are the toll the epidemic has rung, and the responsibility of the living to choose life". Nathan Lee in Village Voice wrote," Téchiné's triumph of compassion and craft shames the American cinema's indifference to gay history." Notable film critic Roger Ebert
commented : "The Witnesses doesn't pay off with a great operatic pinnacle, but it's better that way. Better to show people we care about facing facts they care desperately about, without the consolation of plot mechanics". Ken Fox in TV guide
wrote " Techine’s unwillingness to soften his characters reflects a rare honesty particularly movies about fatal illness, and his film is an engaging and particularly French character study about human nature that’s rarely seen in the movies". In The New York Times
Stephen Holden
warned viewers that "The Witnesses may frustrate those who prefer movies that tell clear-cut stories in which hard lessons are learned. But in the director's farsighted vision of life, the ground under our feet is always shifting. As time pulls us forward, the shocks of the past are absorbed and the pain recedes. In its light-handed way, The Witnesses is profound." David Denby
in his review for The New Yorker
wrote," Téchiné is unusually adroit at manipulating a complex set of relations within a very mixed group of people. This movie is easy to take--chatty and sociable, with a brightly lit, even sunshiny gloss and an open sensuality.'
André Téchiné
André Téchiné , is a French screenwriter and film director. He has had a long and distinguished career that places him among the best post-New Wave French film directors....
, starring Michel Blanc
Michel Blanc
Michel Blanc is a French actor and director who is noted for his roles of losers and hypochondriacs...
, Sami Bouajila
Sami Bouajila
Sami Bouajila is a French award-winning actor of Tunisian origin.Bouajila's grandfather was a Berber born in Tripoli, Libya and immigrated to Tunisia. Bouajila's father decided to immigrate to France in 1956. Sami was born and grew up in Échirolles, a suburb south of Grenoble...
, Emmanuelle Béart
Emmanuelle Béart
Emmanuelle Béart is a French film actress, who has appeared in over 50 film and television productions since 1972. Béart won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress in the film Manon des Sources . She has been nominated a further seven times for Most Promising Actress and Best Actress.- Early...
and Johan Libéreau
Johan Libéreau
Johan Libéreau is French actor. He was an apprentice pastry chef and server, before being spotted by an agent.- Filmography :* 2003: "Tais-toi!" as Adolescent 2* 2004: "Julie Lescaut" episode "Sans pardon" as Michel...
. The film is set in Paris in 1984, the lives of a closely knit group of friends is disrupted with the sudden outbreak of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
epidemic. They are witnesses to how happiness has changed.
Plot
It is the summer of 1984 in Paris. Sarah, a well-to-do writer of children’s books, and her working-class husband, Mehdi, an inspector of North African descent, are confronting some marital problems after the recent arrival of their first child. Sarah, stumbling over a bout of writer's block, has little maternal instinct towards their newborn baby, whose cries she tunes out with earplugs while she works. Her husband despairs when she neglects the child, does what he can to fill in, and sometimes parks the child with his parents. The couple have an open marriage and both are allowed to take outside lovers in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” arrangement that seems to work, although not without tensions.Meanwhile, Sarah’s close friend Adrien, a middle-aged gay doctor, meets Manu, a carefree young man, at a cruising ground. Manu is not sexually attracted to Adrien and they do not have sex, but strike an emotional friendship. Manu is happy with the friendship and becomes Adrien’s companion and his student of life’s finer things. Wildly in love with his shallow, narcissistic protégé, Adrien is shrewd enough not to push too hard, but there is an element of masochism in his abject devotion.
Manu, who has recently arrived to Paris from a provincial town in the south of France, shares a space with his sister Julie, while she struggles to affirm herself as an opera singer. They live in a cheap hotel that is a center of prostitution. This does not bother Manu, and he has a friendly relationship with Sandra, a prostitute. The hotel is under scrutiny by Mehdi, who leads the police force’s vice division.
Through Adrien, Manu meets Sarah and Mehdi. The group of friends get together at Sarah’s mother’ summerhouse in the Calanques of Marseille. One afternoon, when Mehdi and Manu go swimming in a remote cove, Mehdi saves Manu from drowning and, while tugging him to shore and administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, becomes aroused. Later, when Manu makes a pass at Mehdi, he responds, and they embark on a secret, no-strings-attached love affair. They meet at the holiday camping site outside Paris, where Manu now works as a cook.
When Manu confesses to Adrien that he has been having sex with Mehdi, Adrian is furious and hits Manu. After the fight, Adrian discovers spots on Manu's skin; it turns out that he has AIDS. Sarah tries to write a novel, and as a result Mehdi leaves temporarily to stay at his parents with the baby. Adrien becomes a leader in a medical crusade against AIDS, while meanwhile privately taking on Manu's treatment. Mehdi also does not shun his friend when he hears the news, although he is terrified that he has AIDS and cannot bring himself to tell his wife. He wants to see Manu, but Manu does not want to see him in the terrible state he is in. By contrast, Adrien is safe as his relationship with Manu was more companion-based than sexual.
Desperate to see his former lover, Mehdi forces his way into the camping site. Manu shows him his gun, with which he will commit suicide when his illness gets worse. Mehdi secretly takes it with him and throws it in the Seine
Mehdi is relieved that he has not been infected. Sarah has not been infected either and they reconcile. Manu’s health deteriorates and he commits suicide with pills supplied by Adrien for this purpose.
Before he passes away, Manu uses a tape recorder to dictate his life for others to hear of. Sarah is inspired by the events as they have transpired so far and, once he is gone, listens to the tapes and begins writing a tale (for grown-ups) of it. She is free of her writer's block. Medhi is a bit concerned his life will become gossip, but Sarah assures him she has changed the names in the story.
A year later Sarah, Mehdi, Adrien and his new companion Steve, a young American, return to the summerhouse on the Riviera to celebrate Sarah and Medhi's child's birthday
Cast
- Johan LibéreauJohan LibéreauJohan Libéreau is French actor. He was an apprentice pastry chef and server, before being spotted by an agent.- Filmography :* 2003: "Tais-toi!" as Adolescent 2* 2004: "Julie Lescaut" episode "Sans pardon" as Michel...
as Manu - Michel BlancMichel BlancMichel Blanc is a French actor and director who is noted for his roles of losers and hypochondriacs...
as Adrien - Sami BouajilaSami BouajilaSami Bouajila is a French award-winning actor of Tunisian origin.Bouajila's grandfather was a Berber born in Tripoli, Libya and immigrated to Tunisia. Bouajila's father decided to immigrate to France in 1956. Sami was born and grew up in Échirolles, a suburb south of Grenoble...
as Mehdi - Emmanuelle BéartEmmanuelle BéartEmmanuelle Béart is a French film actress, who has appeared in over 50 film and television productions since 1972. Béart won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress in the film Manon des Sources . She has been nominated a further seven times for Most Promising Actress and Best Actress.- Early...
as Sarah - Julie DepardieuJulie DepardieuJulie Marion Depardieu is a French actress who has appeared in a number of successful movies.She is the daughter of Gérard Depardieu and Élisabeth Depardieu, and the sister of the late Guillaume Depardieu—all of whom are also film actors...
as Julie - Constance Dollé as Sandra
- Lorenzo Balducci as Steve
- Xavier BeauvoisXavier BeauvoisXavier Beauvois is a French actor, film director and screenwriter. His film Don't Forget You're Going to Die was entered into the 1995 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Jury Prize....
as the editor - Maïa SimonMaïa SimonMaïa Simon was a French film and television actress.Suffering from cancer, she traveled to Switzerland for voluntary assisted suicide, and died, aged 67.- External links :*...
as Sarah's mother
Analysis
Interviewed about The Witnesses André Téchiné commented: "I think it’s important to consider the issues in the film beyond the framework of heterosexuals vs homosexuals. I don’t know if Mehdi’s affair with Manu is his first or last gay experience; I don’t know if he’s been with other guys or might so in the future. I show my characters at a certain moment in their lives, which reveals certain aspects of them, but it is the tip of the iceberg. The rest, even if we get glimpses of it in the film, is left to the imagination of each person in the audience.I prefer people to be moved by Manu when he runs, climbs a tree or burst out laughing than when he is sick. For me, that would be akin to taking the audience hostage and I reject that. But I don’t reject emotion itself- rather I shift it around instead of placing it where it becomes predictable. I hope audiences find Manu moving in the upbeat scenes in the first half of the film: It is good time shared, not compassion in bad times, that makes good friends”. As Sarah’s mother says in the film it’s a miracle being alive. And it is this sense of miracle that I wanted to conclude and open the film, broadening the horizon by revisiting spaces that Manu has inhabited and rediscovering them without him, with another character traveling through. Perhaps loving Manu and bearing witnesses to his life makes the other protagonist stronger".
Music
The original score for the film was written by Alain SardeAlain Sarde
Alain Sarde is a French film producer and actor who was born on the 28 March 1952 in Boulogne-Billancourt. One of his films, Mulholland Drive received the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Picture. The Pianist was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and won the BAFTA Award for...
, regular composer in Téchiné's films. The sound track includes an eclectic mix of artist and styles like
- Marcia Baila Les Rita MitsoukoLes Rita MitsoukoLes Rita Mitsouko was a French pop rock group formed by guitarist Fred Chichin and singer Catherine Ringer. The duo first performed as Rita Mitsouko at Gibus Club, Paris in 1980...
- I'm a lover Andrea
- Don't Forget the Nite Les Rita MitsoukoLes Rita MitsoukoLes Rita Mitsouko was a French pop rock group formed by guitarist Fred Chichin and singer Catherine Ringer. The duo first performed as Rita Mitsouko at Gibus Club, Paris in 1980...
- Qual Favellar ? from Lorlando finto pazzo Act 3 Antonio VivaldiAntonio VivaldiAntonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
- Barbarina's Aria from Le nozze di Figaro Wolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
- Restez avec Moi Les Rita MitsoukoLes Rita MitsoukoLes Rita Mitsouko was a French pop rock group formed by guitarist Fred Chichin and singer Catherine Ringer. The duo first performed as Rita Mitsouko at Gibus Club, Paris in 1980...
- Docteur Miracle Johan LibéreauJohan LibéreauJohan Libéreau is French actor. He was an apprentice pastry chef and server, before being spotted by an agent.- Filmography :* 2003: "Tais-toi!" as Adolescent 2* 2004: "Julie Lescaut" episode "Sans pardon" as Michel...
Reception
The film received generally positive reviews. Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 85% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 48 reviews. The critical consensus is: " Andre Techine successfully weaves five gripping stories in an engaging and realistic film about the early days of the AIDS epidemic." Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a weighted mean
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 75 based on 15 reviews.
Jan Stuart of Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
wrote, "André Techiné's The Witnesses is one of the finest fiction-film accounts of a free yet frightful moment in time, when the relaxing sexual liberties of the previous decade were being squeezed by the onset of an unforgiving new virus." In Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
Deborah Young commented,"What the characters in The Witnesses -- and the audience -- pay testimony to in André Téchiné's urgent, compassionate, and ultimately optimistic French drama are the toll the epidemic has rung, and the responsibility of the living to choose life". Nathan Lee in Village Voice wrote," Téchiné's triumph of compassion and craft shames the American cinema's indifference to gay history." Notable film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
commented : "The Witnesses doesn't pay off with a great operatic pinnacle, but it's better that way. Better to show people we care about facing facts they care desperately about, without the consolation of plot mechanics". Ken Fox in TV guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
wrote " Techine’s unwillingness to soften his characters reflects a rare honesty particularly movies about fatal illness, and his film is an engaging and particularly French character study about human nature that’s rarely seen in the movies". In The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden is an American writer, music critic, film critic, and poet.Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963...
warned viewers that "The Witnesses may frustrate those who prefer movies that tell clear-cut stories in which hard lessons are learned. But in the director's farsighted vision of life, the ground under our feet is always shifting. As time pulls us forward, the shocks of the past are absorbed and the pain recedes. In its light-handed way, The Witnesses is profound." David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
in his review for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
wrote," Téchiné is unusually adroit at manipulating a complex set of relations within a very mixed group of people. This movie is easy to take--chatty and sociable, with a brightly lit, even sunshiny gloss and an open sensuality.'
Accolades
- Berlin Film FestivalBerlin International Film FestivalThe Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
(Germany)- Nominated: Golden Berlin Bear (André Téchiné)
- César Awards (France)
- Won: Best Actor – Supporting Role (Sami Bouajila)
- Nominated: Best Actor – Leading Role (Michel Blanc)
- Nominated: Best Director (André Téchiné
- Nominated: Most Promising Actor (Johan Libéreau)