BPM (BEATS PER MINUTE): Activists Come Alive

There’s a commonly used juxtaposition when telling stories of the AIDS crisis: young men partying and young men dying. It’s stark, surprising, and ruthlessly effective, because even though you know gay men were among the hardest hit by the disease, it’s still a difficult image to comprehend. Young people shouldn’t waste away, and BPM (Beats per Minute) plays up this incongruity in an engrossing way.

By focusing on the work of ACT UP Paris, the film brings up the scenario naturally. The members were part of a worldwide activist group, one known for aggressive tactics and a willingness to get in your face about the AIDS crisis. They would throw fake blood, stage kiss-ins, and put their ailing bodies on television for everyone to see. After all, they were fighting for their lives, so niceties weren’t exactly at the top of their minds.

Without the disease, they would’ve just been young people rejoicing in life and love, but with it they were forced to confront their own mortality. And that wasn’t something they were going to do quietly. The film picks up in the early 1990s when effective treatment seemed far away and the negotiation between fighting for and enjoying life was playing out in clubs and meeting rooms. Drawing from co-writer and director Robin Campillo’s memory of the time, BPM makes their struggle seem vital and immediate.

Lives On Display

We are introduced to ACT UP Paris through an audience surrogate, Nathan (Arnaud Valois), who is given a brief outline of how the group works before being thrown into his first meeting. It’s clear from the start that this is a loose collective bickering over strategies and priorities, and the great strength of Campillo’s film is how many of the characters in this crowd end up standing out as individuals.

There’s Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) an impatient and often caustic force, weary leaders Thibault (Antoine Reinartz) and Sophie (Adèle Haenel), a mother who unknowingly injected her son with infected blood, people who are deteriorating rapidly, and people who are hanging steady, all of whom begin to take on recognizable styles and allegiances. This allows Campillo to let the narrative zoom in and out, weaving intensely personal relationships into the group’s larger battle.

It’s in these personal moments that the film really shines, changing the narrative from a historical retelling to something alive and tremulous. The audience may know what happens in AIDS stories, but will Sean, Thibault, and Nathan be survivors or martyrs? And will any of them be able to stick together through it all?

These immediate concerns come from Campillo holding on intimate moments, sometimes sexual, sometimes emotional, and often times both at once. This means there are some explicit scenes, but they are never used gratuitously. The sensuality is there to highlight the bitter connection between body and soul as these bright, vivacious people are slowly stripped away by disease.

The Burden of History

Taking on such an influential movement brings the challenge of balancing historical accuracy with the needs of the narrative, and placing the story smack in the middle of the crisis means the film must disseminate a lot of information between all those character-driven beats. Do you recognize Kaposi sarcoma or understand the hope that AZT brought and quickly squashed? How about the chaotic organization of ACT UP itself and the ways in which it was effective? BPM makes an admirable effort to breeze past the details and drop just enough for uneducated audiences to get the gist, but it also immediately brings to mind films like How to Survive a Plague that have struck the balance better.

Plague is a documentary from 2012 about the stateside activity of ACT UP, and, admittedly, is an all-time personal favorite of mine. Considering that the two films follows different chapters of the same group, it’s hardly surprising that they feel similar, but the stylistic choice to give 120 BPM a documentary feel unfortunately heightens the similarities. As the camera bobs and sways through staged meetings, those who have seen Plague will note how small the group seems and how carefully meaningful moments come into frame. The story’s veneer peels a bit, like when you learn that sitcom schools have about nine students in their ‘full’ classes.

Artifice, of course, is part of the game when it comes to making films, which is why it’s rarely smart to break the spell by getting too close to similar, masterful films. The Post was never going to live up to All the President’s Men, and BPM is no How to Survive a Plague. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t do quite enough to distance itself from its predecessor, giving what is otherwise a great film a whiff of disappointment.

Aware Of Its Place

Where BPM does set itself apart is as an affecting slice of the time, more a memoir than a full biography. The film ends before the AIDS c*cktail is developed, and in doing so it hints at the broad influence the disease and the activists still have on life today.

Make no mistake, the c*cktail is not a cure. There is still no vaccine for HIV and those infected never get rid of the virus. The c*cktail stopped AIDS from being an automatic death sentence, but there’s still a long way to go in terms of research and treatment distribution.

But BPM is more about the people, and its here that the film communicates a more specific longevity. HIV/AIDS affected a diverse group of people, but it has specifically lingered among the LGBTQ community. There’s a generation, of which Campillo is a member, who can rattle off the names of friends and family who were lost. Then there’s people like myself who were vaguely aware of it at a young age and had the blatant discrimination form a basis for internalized homophobia.

On a brighter note, though, AIDS activists from this time were so influential in saving themselves that it’s impossible to write them out of the history books. Overwhelming the tendency to minimize or ignore the work of minorities, groups like ACT UP stand among the handful of visible aspirational figures from the LGBTQ community, and so Campillo left them still living their bright, loud struggle in his film.

BPM (Beats per Minute): Conclusion

It takes a lot to stand out among the numerous films about the AIDS crisis, but Campillo has managed to craft one that’s certain to stand the test of time. Distinctive characters and an astute understanding of what made ACT UP so memorable shines through. However, the film gives off such a vivacious energy that it never feels of the past; it is a moment preserved exactly as it should be.

Did you enjoy BPM (Beats per Minute)? What are some of your favorite films about activism? Let us know in the comments!

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