The Witnesses
This is the screenshot that started it all. I’ve seen it in the signature of somebody in the AwardsDaily forums and was somewhat intrigued. It made me think of the dancing scene in Bande à part somehow. Thank you, Prog, for pointing this film out to me! In the end, “Les Témoins” turned out completely different than what I expected. For example I didn’t expect it to be so very similar to “Closer” – if I had to describe this film in one sentence, it’d be a “relationship-quartett à la francaise”. I also didn’t expect this film to be put such an emphasis on homosexual relationships, and your typical cliché that these catch aids-like viruses first O.o How idiotic of me. Just because I thought of Bande à part, there was nothing that guaranteed that the characters would be in the same kind of relationship triangle.
It’s true that Emmanuelle Beárt looks (and sounds!) outstandingly nice in this film, but this is probably the last film of hers that I would recommend. It has some interesting characters, a few very nice, stylish scenes in a very french way, but I was totally unable to relate to the characters, let alone their feelings. It’s not like I necessarily disliked them or they were too weird to identify myself to them, it’s rather the exact opposite: maybe they were just too normal for a change, so normal that I feel unable to relate to them now.
I’m sorry for not having a script for displaying spoilers (maybe I should implement this), but to illustrate the clichéd relationships, this is the rundown. Just don’t read paragraph and move to the next if you are interested in this film:
No.1 and Woman 1 are married with a child. No. 2 is the best friend of the Woman 1 and randomly hooks up with No.3. No.3 also has a sister, Woman 2. All four are having a vacation together, and No.1 and No.3 fall in love with each other. Later, No.3 has a terminal disease, and breaks up with No.1 again. No.1 goes back to his wife, No.2 has a new relationship and the Woman and No.3 kiss. Oh, also No.1 now has an affair with Woman 2. It doesn’t sound half as complicated in the film, but to me, that’s just… wow.
Finally, my favourite scene among all of them are actually the one that involved Sarah talking to her mother about her own birth. That little part took this film out of its somewhat superficial stylishness into something ‘better’, at least for me.