Victor Belmondo, Lou Lampros, Hélyos Johnson, Théo Christine in “Live, die, be reborn” ARP – CINÉ+ FESTIVAL
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Seven years after the very beautiful “Take the sea” – there was, in the meantime, a documentary and a fiction for television -, Gaël Morel returns with one of his most beautiful films. All his cinema is eminently personal, but this feature film is undoubtedly a little more so than the others: born in 1972, the director was contemporary with the arrival of AIDS. A tragedy which shattered loves, fragile freedoms and almost tipped the world back into homophobic xenophobia.
To have lived through this period has been to live with the dull guilt of the survivor ever since. Why others and not yourself? The question tormented the films of Christophe Honoré (“Plaire, amour et cours vite”) and Robin Campillo (“120 Beats per minute”). Like a fleeting specter, she also goes through this heartbreaking drama. A woman loves a man who loves her back while falling madly in love with another man. Live. The desires, the impulses and to die of them, alas.
Far from being a mausoleum film
This story of “throuple” speaks of the multiple circulation of passion. A child will be born. Starting point for another story, a rebirth. Gaël Morel’s direction is impulsive, with erotic and sensual vitality, but also uneasy and hampered. With “Live, die, reborn”, he salutes those who accompanied his generation: Cyril Collard (the film poster pays homage to that of “Nuits fauves”) or Leos Carax, one of the first to have mentioned the virus (“Mauvais sang”).
Morel finally expresses the pain of not having grown up with these authors who left too early, who looked like us (Koltès, Guibert, Lagarce, etc.), knew how to put words to our identities and helped us accept ourselves. But “Live, Die, Reborn” is not a mausoleum film. Quite the contrary.
It is a lyrical and tragic flight which looks at the past to better understand the present, where three actors – Victor Belmondo, Lou Lampros and Théo Christine (photo) -, with crystalline beauty and sublimated charisma, shine with captivating intensity.
◗ Friday January 2 at 10:35 p.m. on Ciné+ Festival. French drama by Gaël Morel (2024). With Lou Lampros, Victor Belmondo, Théo Christine. 1h49. (Available on demand on myCANAL).
