Robin Campillo's 120 Battements Par Minute, or When the Dust Unsettles

Abstract

Robin Campillo's 120 Battements Par Minute, or When the Dust Unsettles Loïc Bourdeau (bio) One is not HIV positive in a cultural and political vacuum. In fact, there is no other experience of HIV than one that is saturated with politics and culture. That's why it's so messy and so slippery, so dynamic that it can never sit still long enough to constitute a stable object of knowledge.1 The current COVID-19 pandemic has shown that similar patterns of fear and stigmatization occur when a new, unknown virus emerges. In particular, the question of its geographical origin and the search for "patient zero" represent central talking points, crystalize political scrutiny, garner media attention, and often lead to scapegoating or discrimination. On March 27, 2020, the French magazine Têtu reported on a gay couple who had received a threatening note at home asking them to leave their apartment because "we know that you, homosexuals, are the first to be infected by COVID-19."2 Another piece of intentionally misleading "news" argued that the current virus had been created from HIV.3 These instances not only denote an essentialized and misinformed view on homosexuality, but they also demonstrate that the history of HIV/AIDS is still quite unknown. By stigmatizing them further still, minoritized groups are thus put at heightened health risks: "they fear being . . . accused of being carriers."4 In the 1980s, Canadian flight attendant Gaétan Dugas was wrongfully referred to as "patient zero" in the media. The allegations that Dugas had brought HIV back from Africa to North America made headlines and had his and his family's reputation tarnished. Studies now show that the virus had in fact been circulating in the country long before [End Page 111] Dugas was identified; yet, he also came to represent all homosexuals. Portrayals of Dugas—as morally loose and sexually promiscuous—tainted all gay men. This article will engage with cultural productions by HIV-positive artists, and in particular with Robin Campillo, who sought to counter stereotypes and amalgamation by offering subjective and personalized accounts of life with HIV or AIDS-related complications. French director Robin Campillo's feature film 120 Battements par minute (120 Beats Per Minute; henceforth BPM), released in 2017 to critical acclaim,5 takes its viewers back to early 1990s France shortly after Act Up-Paris, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, was formed in 1989.6 If David Caron, cited in the epigraph, reminds us that living with HIV is "saturated with politics and culture," V. Hunter Capps rightly points out in his reading of BPM that "[t]he date is extremely important because it situates the film before 1996 when effective medical treatments became available as a triple combination antiretroviral therapy . . . still used today, and that transformed HIV from a death sentence into a chronic but livable condition."7 Following the French grassroots movement, BPM shows how they "organiz[ed] high-visibility stunts that highlighted stigma, lack of funding, the pecuniary agenda of pharmaceutical companies, and the slow pace of governmental response."8 While the film offers a take on a historical moment, it does so through the dramatic portrayal of several main characters, to whom viewers become progressively attached: HIV-positive activist Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), his soon-to-be boyfriend and HIV-negative Nathan (Arnaud Valois), lesbian lead activist Sophie (Adèle Haenel), and gay lead activist Thibault (Antoine Reinartz), among a large chorus of individuals with their own stories. The film constantly plays with the macro (French history) and the micro (personal stories), from scenes of headquarter meetings to joyful nightclub dance scenes, meetings with drug companies, scenes from protests, and more intimate scenes in the home. While Campillo "didn't make this film to lecture anyone,"9 he nevertheless sought to raise awareness about the trauma, to make it resurface. He notes, "I worked with young, mostly gay actors who have a very different relationship to HIV and Aids [sic] than I had 25 years ago. And I realized that I didn't know that they didn't know" (my emphasis).10 [End Page 112] The current resurgence of this trauma in contemporary French...