

The latter is reflected by the film's title, 120 bpm being the average number of beats per minute of a house track. This was at a time when many, implicitly or explicitly, viewed AIDS as a gay disease, even as a punishment for the gay community's propensity to pleasure and partying. Using fake blood and spectacular direct action, ACT UP advocated more and better research of treatment, prevention, and awareness. It revolves around the Parisian chapter of the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP, which Campillo was a member of in the early 1990s, and the love between Nathan, the group's newest member, who is HIV negative, and Sean, one of its founding and more radical members, who is positive and suffers the consequences of contracting AIDS.

A testament to the power of cinema to remember the forgotten.Īutobiographical in nature, 120 BPM is French screenwriter Robin Campillo's first feature film. It's a stunning and provocative look at the legacy of historical mass killings, along with the insidious propaganda that provokes them, and continues to justify them to younger generations. As he questions them about the killings, the murderers, again, show little remorse and eagerly provide the lurid details to the many executions. One victim in particular: a soft-spoken optician named Adi Rukun, who meets with various members of the death squad who murdered his elder brother Ramli, under the guise of giving them an eye test. While the first film's focus was on the culprits and on providing facts, the second one lets us meet the victims. Both films aim attention at the Indonesian Genocide of 1965-66, when the military government systematically purged up to one million communists. 25 Best Streaming Bundle Deals Right NowĪ follow-up/companion piece to the award-winning The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence is another compelling documentary from Director Joshua Oppenheimer.

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