tonight i had three epiphanies. you may not want to hear about them, but alas, i'm about to tell you anyway.

the first one is that french women are just god-tier creatures, man. it's like The Creator or whoever lives up there in the universe handmade each and every one of them with so much dedication and precision that they ran out of time and just rushed making the other human beings. but you probably already knew that, so i'll move on.

i'm a very unenthusiastic person. that's my second epiphany. i like a lot of things, like music or books or photography, but i don't really love them, you know? i love films but i don't really want to…

There’s an exceptional moment in BPM when a young history student named Jérémie, who dies of AIDS not long after joining the group, describes the overthrow of the French monarchy, offering the movie an impromptu history of French radicalism. His words overlay not only images from those earlier revolutions, but also news footage of the real ACT UP from the ’80s and ’90s. Campillo’s intentions are clear: We’re to see ACT UP within the broader history of French Revolution, and the victims of AIDS—people like Jéremié—as martyrs for that cause. Movies about AIDS often bypass the politics and instead bombard us with heroic victims. Rare is the movie that makes political organizing—of any kind—its subject. In BPM, there is a…

pride has never felt liberating or revelatory for me. i have been out for nearly two years and in that time i have experienced many ups and downs, moments of doubt or self loathing and a sense of lingering pain throughout my body and mind, like i am not good enough for this world. pride always felt like capitalistic harassment, an appropriated party for straights to get drunk and wear rainbow coloured outfits to get woke points, and celebrate with bank branches and the police. i walked through the noisy crowds, breathing in unwanted nicotine and tried to escape and go somewhere, anywhere else but got caught up in the mass and felt trapped in a place i was supposed…

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There seems to be a general consensus brewing that BPM falters in its final act, when Campillo narrows the lens and focuses on its designated couple, longtime activist Sean (Nahule Perez Biscayart) and relative newbie Nathan (Arnaud Valois). It's true that the film is setting up a fairly clear-cut division between theory and practice, or perhaps more accurately between social and personal activism. Part of the purpose of asking us to watch Sean die is to remind us that AIDS robbed the world of seemingly inextinguishable spirits, mere humans who were no match for the disease.

Campillo is also opting to follow through on the film's initial structural conceit, making Nathan our audience surrogate throughout BPM. Instead of remaining…

Whenever I saw the poster of BPM (Beats per Minute) I thought that the guy seemed very happy. What saves BPM from being just a random series of events that focus on a a group of HIV/AIDS activists and their struggle to effect action to fight the AIDS epidemic is the sincerity that arounds it.

Right from the start it appears as if the camera position was telling us that we're going to be inside this movement as if we were part of it. Like, it wanted to make us feel in our skin how it felt. On the other hand, there's sincerity in how the characters are represented, not only with their struggles and their sickness, but with their…

This was a very powerful film about the ACT UP Chapter in Paris, France.

The struggles of aids patients and their fight for effective medications to slow the progress of the disease.

There are moments which are funny, and there are moments which are very emotional and heart-breaking. Of course, at the time there was a great deal of prejudice and hate toward aids patients, as well as Gay men, and other members of the LGBTQIAPlus Community.

There was one scene, where this ACT UP group was at a high school, encouraging students to use condoms if they have sex, to be mindful of the possible consequences that could arise from having unprotected sex. A female high school student bluntly…

The first two acts of this movie are great, starting with the focus on the ACT UP movement as a whole and transitioning over to the main couple of Sean and Nathan. However, this loses a lot of steam in the third act and could probably lose a solid 20 minutes at least.

I think this probably would've worked a bit better if we got more perspectives from within the group besides Sean and Nathan. I understand why they focus on a specific person (the focus is way more on Sean than Nathan), but it does seem weird that a lot of focus during the meetings goes towards leader Adele Haenel, yet she feels so distant as we don't have…