The Witnesses (2008)
85 %
Reviews Counted: 39 Fresh: 33 Rotten:6 Average Rating: 7/10
Consensus:
French director André Téchiné successfully weaves five gripping stories in an engaging and realistic film about the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
Runtime: 1 hr 52 mins
Theatrical Release: 2007
Synopsis: Legendary French film director André Téchiné goes back to 1980s Paris in the tender, heartbreaking THE WITNESSES. Emmanuelle Beart (8 WOMEN) stars as Sarah, a children's book author who has just had her first child with husband Mehdi (Sami Bouajila), a vice cop. Sarah's doctor and close... [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Michel Blanc, Emmanuelle Beart, Sami Bouajila, Julie Depardieu, Johan Libereau
Director: André Téchiné
Screenwriter: André Téchiné, Laurent Guyot, Viviane Zingg
Producer: Saďd Ben Saďd
Composer: Philippe Sarde
Screenwriter: André Téchiné, Laurent Guyot, Viviane Zingg
Producer: Saďd Ben Saďd
Composer: Philippe Sarde
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Reviews
Comment
Top Critic
Lots of gab, a little flesh flashing, more gab, and not much action or momentum. French Kissing, Brokeback Mountain style.
06/21/08
The first 80 minutes or so are really good, but then the movie goes on for about a half hour longer than it needs to.
06/18/08
A welcome addition to a legion of AIDS related movies and the French perspective, so different from our own, never fails to intrigue
05/22/08
As in real life, often the main crisis morphs into a continuance that has no slam-bang conclusion. Rather, we just see a small hope that awakes to experience another sunrise.
05/19/08
The Witnesses doesn't pay off with a great operatic pinnacle, but it's better that way. Better to show people we care about facing facts they care desperately about, without the consolation of plot mechanics.
05/16/08
Top Critic
A rambling but often affecting account of the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
04/03/08
Unyieldingly pleasant and way too fussy for its own good... so sunny and polite it makes Rent look like Cruising.
03/17/08
It becomes a movie about figuring out how to live a full life, and The Witnesses is necessarily a bittersweet one, since so many people who came of age in the '80s never had a chance.
03/14/08
Director Andre Techine's story is one of subtle emotional tones that require the most of an actor, and the cast is uniformly compelling.
03/13/08
Top Critic
The explosion of AIDS is the film's sobering heart, but the manner in which it affects those who witness it makes the story universal and, through each person's small, life-affirming reactions, hopeful.
03/13/08
In The Witnesses, [director] Techine levels his gaze on the '80s, an era of seeming innocence, perhaps license, and one in which biological freedom has led to a loose, even sloppily knit fabric of humanity.
03/13/08
Top Critic
Top Critic
André Téchiné is a master at taking life experiences and stripping them of sentimentality, leaving us with only the bare-bones honesty of relationships and desire.
03/03/08
André Téchiné is a master at taking life experiences and stripping them of sentimentality, leaving us with only the bare-bones honesty of relationships and desire.
03/03/08
What the characters in The Witnesses -- and the audience -- pay testimony to in André Téchiné's urgent, compassionate, and ultimately optimistic French drama are the toll the epidemic has rung, and the responsibility of the living to choose life.
02/20/08
Top Critic
An ambling narrative, but an atmospheric one that feels authentic despite its unlikely character pairings.
02/15/08
Top Critic
It is a huge credit to the actors that we end up caring about these deeply flawed individuals.
02/14/08
This film need not be approached with dread or trepidation; life, as witnessed by this small group of flawed but always empathetic characters, is a messy, ugly, and unfair business, but sometimes still surprisingly wonderful.
02/03/08
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Critic review: 'The Witnesses' Bear AIDS Burden of Time Less Remembered
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