Directing: A
Acting: A-
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A
Editing: A

I have only good things to say about this movie, which offers a window into an era not well enough remembered, from the unusual vantage point -- for Americans, anyway -- of another culture.

Maybe straight people today aren't as familiar with ACT UP, the radical activist organization started in New York City to fight for the rights of people with HIV and AIDS. The same could be said of younger queer people today, who have no real understanding of the vast devastation this epidemic unleashed on sexual minority communities. And the U.S. was hardly alone in this.

BPM tells the story of ACT UP Paris in the early nineties. The reference point to which director and co-writer Robin Campillo regularly returns is the organization's weekly meetings, the opening scene being a quick orientation of new members. These activists squabble and organize, disagree on certain key points and band together. They discuss whether or not a demonstration going unexpectedly is good or bad for them, and the story flashes back to a group of them storming the stage at a speech by a government official. Cut back to the weekly meeting, all these activists assembled in a large classroom with stadium-style seating. They move on to their plans to throw fake blood all over the offices of a pharmaceutical company that is not acting quickly enough to save lives not deemed valuable enough by the public at large. Then we're in a flash-forward to the actual scene, these angry activists making a mess of an otherwise very normal-seeming office setting.

As such, from the very start, BPM pulsates with tension and urgency; it crackles with excitement until it inevitably evolves into the dread of personal loss. You don't expect this kind of energy when the setting starts in a classroom of political activists discussing strategy.

All these transitions are done with impressive grace, the entire film edited beautifully, shot with a uniquely tender intensity. We meet several of the activists, but the story zeroes in on Nathan (Arnaud Valois), one of the new recruits who has somehow managed not to get infected, and Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), the HIV-positive activist Nathan falls for. They grow close, become a couple, and also emblematic of everything ACT UP fought for.

The sex scenes between Nathan and Sean are unusually frank, and I think this is important to mention. The things they do with each other are very common, arguably even "vanilla," and yet there are few American distributors, if any, who would quite be able to stomach it. The thing is, not only is the sex seen here no more graphic than virtually all straight sex seen onscreen -- it is also among the best I have ever seen depicted, in terms of its parallels to real life experience. Here it is not voyeuristic or necessarily titillating to anyone besides the characters involved. It's a reflection of humanity, an authentic intimacy, a depiction of comfortable sex-positivity gay people have had for ages but gets very little accurate representation on camera. ACT UP was all about fighting stigma, which is what makes BPM's sex scenes so appropriate.

It should come as no surprise that BPM ends in sadness, and a kind that is likely to cut very deep for any viewers who actually lived through the era it depicts. Of course there are countless movies that in one way or another depict the AIDS epidemic, but BPM taps deep into the very specific anger about government inaction, and does justice to the disruptive activists who made a difference.

I found myself thinking about the Black Lives Matter movement as I watched this film. Anyone who insists their disruptive demonstrations are counterproductive would do well to consider groups like ACT UP. Sometimes disruption is the only option available. And with both groups, they were -- and are -- talking about literal lives at stake, lives undervalued by the public at large. These are courageous people fighting to make the world a better place.

Even in my forties, I barely missed the era of HIV and AIDS killing a staggering number of people -- I can barely fathom what the experience was like, both for those who died and for survivors who saw their entire social world decimated, at the same time many of them had families rejecting them. BPM doesn't focus on the latter element (in fact, Sean has an incredibly supportive mother), but it never lets up on the kind of urgency set upon this community. And here is a film that depicts it with finesse. You won't soon forget it, because ACT UP demanded that we never do.

*Nahuel Pérez Biscayart and Arnaud Valois fall into each other amidst organized chaos and expected tragedy.*

Overall: A