We were witnesses
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | We were witnesses |
| Original title | Les témoins |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 2007 |
| length | 112 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | André Téchiné |
| script | André Téchiné Laurent Guyot Viviane Zingg Michel Canesi Jamil Rahmani |
| production | Said Ben Said |
| music | Philippe Sarde |
| camera | Julien Hirsch |
| cut | Martine Giordano |
| occupation | |
| |
We were witnesses is a French drama film directed by André Téchiné in 2007. Alternative titles are Die Zeugen (festival title) and Les Témoins (performance title in Switzerland).
action
The Happy Days (Summer 84)
Children's book author Sarah and Mehdi, chief inspector at the Paris Morals Police , have become parents to a boy. You are friends with the homosexual doctor Adrien. In the summer of 1984 he met young Manu, who was visiting his sister Julie, who is an opera singer, in Paris. Adrien and Manu become a couple, even if they never sleep together. Adrien shows him Paris and they both spend the summer with Sarah and Mehdi in Sarah's mother's summer house, where they go boating, among other things. One day Mehdi and Manu go swimming. Manu overestimates his strength and threatens to drown. Mehdi pulls him out of the water. The close contact with Manu confuses him. Manu later went to Paris to thank Mehdi for the rescue. Mehdi invites him to a sightseeing flight. On the way home, Manu Mehdi puts his hand on his thigh, but Mehdi fights off. He drives to a field where the two get closer and finally sleep together. In the period that followed, the two of them met more and more often, especially since Sarah was going through a difficult phase: She had writer's block and only realized after the birth of her child that she did not like children and could not be a good mother. Sarah knows that Mehdi is having affairs, but they both live in an open relationship. Andrien, on the other hand, believes that Manu just doesn't see him anymore because he works on a campsite outside Paris for the summer. When he visits him once, Manu tells him that he is with Mehdi. Adrien is outraged and hits Manu. When he stands in front of him with an open shirt, Adrien sees unusual spots on his upper body. Manu puts it on the sun, but Adrien has tests carried out. It soon becomes clear that Manu has the newly discovered and rampant disease AIDS . Manu separates from Mehdi and retires completely to the campsite, where he lives in a caravan. He refuses Adrien's offer to look after him.
The war (winter 84-85)
Manu is getting worse and worse. He obtains a pistol from the camp site attendant so that he can kill himself in an emergency. Although he doesn't want to see him, Mehdi goes to see him. He believed that Manu had a new boyfriend and was shocked to learn of his illness. He goes to Adrien and has him do an HIV test . He tells Sarah that he has an affair with the virus and that he will cut off contact with her as long as the test result is not there. Sarah can also be tested. She learns the truth about Mehdi and Manu from Adrien. Manu has meanwhile been hospitalized for observation because the virus has now attacked his brain regions. Here his sister visits him, who is now singing a small role at the Paris Opera. In his last weeks Manu lives with Adrien, who takes care of him. Here Manu speaks his life story on tape. Mehdi learns that he was not infected and meets Sarah again. Manu doesn't want to see him anymore, but Sarah goes to him and Adrien for Christmas. The encounter with Manu awakens Sarah's strength to write again and so she begins a new novel about Manu's life story. Mehdi doesn't want her to write about Manu and thus also about him. After an argument, she retires to her mother's house on the coast, where she works in peace. Manu dies and is buried in the presence of Adrien and Julie.
Summer is coming back
Julie has to leave her apartment during a raid. This is how she gets to know Mehdi better, who led the raid. Both fly together, as Mehdi once did with Manu. Adrien meets Steve from New York, with whom he starts an affair. Sarah, who has finished her novel, invites both of them to her son's first birthday. Adrien doesn't know whether he will accept Mehdi's offer of reconciliation there, since he now has doubts as to whether homo- and heterosexuals can be friends at all. As once with Manu, in the end the five of them take a boat trip out to sea.
production
We witnessed the filming in Paris, Couflens ( Ariège department ) and La Ciotat . The costumes were created by Khadija Zeggaï , the film structures are by Michèle Abbé-Vannier . The film premiered on February 12, 2007 at the Berlin International Film Festival . The performance title was Die Zeugen . The film was not released in German cinemas, but was shown under the original title on March 7, 2007 in French-speaking Switzerland and on March 15, 2007 in German-speaking Switzerland. The French theatrical release was on March 7, 2007, with the film being seen by 384,954 viewers. In Germany, the film entitled We were witnesses was shown for the first time on arte on December 2, 2013 .
synchronization
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Adrien | Michel Blanc | Rainer Schmitt |
| Sarah | Emmanuelle Béart | Susanne von Medvey |
| Mehdi | Sami Bouajila | Sascha Draeger |
criticism
The film service called We Were Witnesses an "ambitious contribution on the subject of sex and love in times of AIDS and on dealing with the deadly disease", which, however, "threatens to sink in the lengthy, complex flow of narrative given the many narrative threads. ". “Morals: well played, but too good,” summarized Cinema .
Awards
We were witnesses ran at the Berlinale 2007 in the competition for the Golden Bear . In December 2007 André Téchiné was nominated for a Prix Louis Delluc .
Sami Bouajila won a César for Best Supporting Actor in 2008 . The film was nominated for three other Césars: In the categories of Best Lead Actor (Michel Blanc), Best Young Actor (Johan Libéreau) and Best Director (André Téchiné).
Web links
- We have witnessed in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ See berlinale.de
- ↑ See Les Témoins on movies.ch
- ↑ See allocine.fr
- ↑ Cf. We were witnesses on arte.tv ( Memento from January 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ We were witnesses. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ We were witnesses. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ See cinema.de
- ↑ See award overview on allocine.fr