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THE WITNESSES
Directed by André Téchiné
Written by Téchiné, Laurent Guyot & Viviane Zingg
Produced by Saïd Ben Saïd
Director of Photography, Julien Hirsch
Edited by Martine Giordano
Music by Philippe Sarde
Released by Strand Releasing
Language: French with English subtitles
France. 112 min. Not Rated.
With Michel Blanc, Emmanuelle Béart, Sami Bouajila, Julie Depardieu, Johan Libéreau & Constance Dollé.

The Witnesses is a Parisian take on the cultural changes that were seen from a San Francisco perspective in Tales of the City as well as And the Band Played On.

“Happy Days – Summer 1984,” the opening chapter, nostalgically celebrates those good times when the city’s rambles at night were full of trysting men. Joining in the revelries fresh from the boondocks of southern France, Manu (Johan Libéreau), a handsome, angelic Billy Budd-type, bestows his sexual favors on the young, the old and the married. He is platonically supported by the older, smitten Adrien (Michel Blanc).

The women the two men know are all workaholics, whether they are artists or prostitutes. Manu’s sister Julie (Julie Depardieu) is so intent on exercising her vocal muscles, as she puts it, to become an opera singer that she is oblivious to the fact that she and Manu are living in a junkie-filled brothel, where they befriend the usual whore with the heart of gold.

Adrien’s wealthy friend Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart) encourages her police officer husband Mehdi (Sami Bouajila, almost as dynamic as in Days of Glory) into having affairs in order to promote her own freedom; she is so ambivalent about being a new mother she wears ear plugs to block out her unnamed son’s cries. The film’s running narration is her effort at progressing from writing children’s books to one for grown-ups.

Just as two of the friends unexpectedly fall in love (though only the very beautiful Béart is frequently seen naked), the ominous chapter “War – Winter 1984” dwarfs any friction as evidence mounts of a plague on the la vie bohème. The Witnesses is at its best when it turns from not-so-blithe bed-hopping into a docudrama that effectively captures a particular time and place. The characters’ lives are integrated with newscasts of the panic and prejudice that followed the identification and linking of the first cases of AIDS around the world.

Adrien transforms from a besotted fool into a saintly doctor, as well as becoming a responsible godfather. In the film’s most convincing and emotional story line, Mehdi, as the chief of the vice division, is caught in the middle of the crisis, personally and professionally. Julie’s performance in The Marriage of Figaro progresses from the roundelay of fools in love to her singing Barbarina’s aria of loss. And Sarah finally names her son, and frees her writer’s block through the roman à clef, The Newcomer, that is the film’s story.

The Witnesses is somewhat of interest for presenting the French perspective on the recognition of the AIDS crisis, compared to how it has been treated in American films. But its effort to personalize how it affected a broad range of society – men, women, the closeted and out, drug addicts, and the middle class, etc. – is not emotionally convincing as the characters lose their individuality. However, while director/co-writer André Téchiné pushes the idea that they have all grown up to appreciate life, they are realistically seen ruefully continuing the same behaviors as before, just taking more precautions and with more awareness of their impact on each other. Nora Lee Mandel
February 1, 2008