The Witnesses

The Witnesses
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	André Téchiné
Produced by	Said Ben Said
Written by	André Téchiné Laurent Guyot Vivianne Zingg
Starring	Michel Blanc Emmanuelle Béart Sami Bouajila Julie Depardieu Johan Libéreau
Music by	Philippe Sarde
Cinematography	Julien Hirsch
Edited by	Martine Giordano
Release date	7 March 2007 (France) 1 February 2008 (USA)
Running time	112 minutes
Country	France
Language	French
Budget	$6.8 million
Box office	$3 million

The Witnesses (French: Les Témoins) is a 2007 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, starring Michel Blanc, Sami Bouajila, Emmanuelle Béart and Johan Libéreau. The film, set in Paris in 1984, explores the lives of a closely knit group of friends who are impacted with the sudden outbreak of the AIDS epidemic. The Witnesses was critically acclaimed.

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.