andré téchiné new movie about criss cross relationship mark by the aid crisis begin when adrien ( michel blanc ) and a respectable gay doctor and pick up a young and eager and definitely gay country boy from the mountain in a parisian cruising area . adrien just want to protect young manu ( johan libéreau ) while there no sex while but he take the boy everywhere and fall madly in love with him . whatever shenanigan manu be up to and he sweet to adrien . a narcissist and he love the attention . he doesn not get that from julie and ( julie depardieu ) and the opera singer sister he share a cheap hotel room with . adrien idyll end when manu get a job in a remote camping ground and start an affair with a bisexual vice cop of arab extraction name mehdi ( sami bouajila ) . it a small world and because not only have manu and mehdi meet through mehdi well heeled wife and sarah ( a friend of adrien ) while mehdi also mind the seedy area where manu live with julie and consort with the local whore . sarah and mehdi have an open marriage . they also have a baby she doesn not much care for and she be get tire of write child book and want to write a regular novel . after save manu from drown give mehdi a rag hard on and they begin have daily sex and this become something far too important to tell sarah about . all this be move forward with a nouvelle vague style retrospective voice over speak by sarah and and this be part one and entitle summer 1984 represent happy day . the happy day be not to last . the aids crisis be about to happen and manu be go to be one of it early victim . the idea that this be a collective tragedy worthy of opera be underline by julie singing and operatic background theme and not to mention the swirling merry go round of interactive relationship . many of these ingredient be familiar to téchiné fan . the young gay boy from the mountain who go wild in paris have close parallel with the young pierre ( play by an actor name manu and manuel blanc ) in the 1991 jembrasse pa ( i don not kiss ) and who likewise come from the mountain and wind up in a promiscuous gay life a a hustler and and initially find an old gay protector at a parisian cruising area ( and this film also have béart in the cast ) . i don not kiss focus mainly on pierre and but in it many path cross . a love triangle and bisexuality be central to the 1994 wild reed ( le roseaux sauvages ) and another period film and though it set in the sixty . criss crossing and bisexuality and and a brother sister combination be find in le voleurs ( thief and 1996 ) . these be all fine and fascinating film . the witness partakes of the same complexity . there be something radical about téchiné ability to avoid a central action or central character and yet keep thing interest even more interesting because of the unpredictability of the interaction and an openness toward behavior the straight world tend to see a forbidden or transgressive . le voleurs be complicate in this way and but it anchor in a powerful sense of family and place and and make exciting by the fact that one main character be a representative of the law and several others he personally involved with be and a the title implies and criminal . wild reed be a kind of triple come of age film and and have simplicity and focus through a tranquil provincial setting and the relatively simple life of the three youth and with the algerian war a vague but powerful magnetic force in the background . it more sympathetic toward the gay boy and his sensitive girlfriend than toward the bisexual youth who break his heart and but the latter dark appeal be unmistakable . téchiné mastery of the odd and unexpected relationship be never more evident than in the intense and transitory union between a wild and mysterious boy call yvan ( gaspard ulliel ) and a parisian mother flee wwii bomb in the country ( béart again ) whom he rescue in strayed ( le égarés ) a story of intense freshness mark by téchiné great sense of landscape and ability to blend sweeping and evocative track shot and vivid close ups . the look of the witness isn not a beautiful and consistent and but there be many nice little visual detail . the face will stay with you represent mehdi hyperactive eye and muscular brow and and disturbed jaw and adrien intelligent and bourgeois solidity and his pale shave dome and have stylish round glass while sarah distract gaze and scruffy bleach hair while manu wild eagerness and frequent smile and then his skin ravage by lesion . also memorable visually be manu little light foot leap over barrier and onto branch and which adrien observes admiringly but do not try to follow . it disconcert to discover that manu isn not central to the witness because when aid take him away and life go on . adrien have become part of the team of french doctor frantically seek to manage the disease . this be part two represent the war ( against aid ) . mehdi be terrify that he be infected and but when he learn that he isn not and his life can resume in new but not altogether different direction . sarah and against his wish and brings manu story into her adult novel . the couple make love again and but mehdi also begin take julie up in the little airplane that be part of his courtship of manu and she begin to replace manu in his affection . there a slight danger that the witness will seem like a telenovela . manu story end and he drop out of the series and and a new sequence begin . the coda entitle summer return be both premature and excessive . the film feel a bit a if it go on too long and doesn not really know how to end . but the point be still a valid one and at least for the cross section of society and young and old and sophisticated and naïve and creative and blocked and rich and poor and integrate into the ingenious and characteristically téchiné esquire story . la vie continue . the witness survive .