The French movie BPM (Beats per Minute) opens in San Francisco
BPM (Beats per Minute), that was showing at the recent Mill Valley Film Festival, opens October 27, 2017 in San Francisco and Berkeley.
Before we went and discovered the movie BPM (Beats per Minute) by French director Robin Campillo at the Mill Valley Film Frestival, we had read so many things about it. And we thought we were ready... It was not enough. BPM is a shock and leaves us like knocked out... but in a good way, because it is a movie that changes you, radically transforms you.
The movie is such an intimate portrayal. We cry, we smile, we love the characters, they are suddenly part of our own story, we resist, we bridle. And then there is Sean, so handsome, so vulnerable, fragile and yet so combative, ready for a fight. He is as intense, rough, muddled, sweet as life that slips away from him.
The expression is a bit clichéd, and yet, that's the way it is... we don't leave unscathed from the movie. We dig in our memories trying to figure out who we were, where we were, what we were doing in those terrible 90s that let thousands and thousands die from AIDS while they could have been take care of, helped and accompanied.
And we can't help but drawing a parallel between what happened then and what happens now in the US with the opioid crisis. The plague is tragic and again, we cope with pharmaceutical groups, that, instead of contributing to alleviate the pain, are the main and primary cause of the tragedy. Again, the feeling that we are manipulated and that human values are totally neglected, strikes us.
This is an outstanding movie, like an electroshock, a movie that struggles, twists, calms down a bit, and then gets back to its desperate battle, cries, loses, a movie which is a heartrending story of love, life, desire and fight, with Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat as a soundtrack, of course.
BPM (Beats per Minute) won the Grand Prix at the latest Cannes Festival. And the movie has been selected to represent France at the upcoming Oscars Ceremony. We just hope it will be part of the final nominees selection of Foreign Movies.
120 Battements par Minute / BPM (Beats per Minute)
A film directed by Robin Campillo
Opens in San Francisco and Berkeley
October 27, 2017
Opera Plaza - San Francisco
Shattuck Cinema - Berkeley
Check all the release dates for BPM (Beats per Minute) throughout the US > here.
