User Reviews

"Paris 05:59" tells a very realistic story of love between two men, Theo and Hugo. They meet in a sex club in Paris. This is the opening scene of the movie, and it is not for any prudes. And it isn't just a "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" scene. It lasts for 20 minutes and nothing is left to the imagination.

The story really begins when the two lovers depart the club and on their way to someone's apartment, they realize one of them has had unprotected sex with a partner who is HIV-positive. The mere fact one of them insists they immediately go to be tested demonstrated (to me, at least) this was probably more than just a one-time tryst in a sex club. The movie delves deeper into how these two men actually feel about, well, everything. I have not seen a movie (probably since "Brokeback Mountain") that demonstrates so deeply the passion and love that can actually exist between two men.

This movie is either not rated or is NC-17. There is EXPLICIT sexual activity in the first 20 minutes, and there is graphic nudity. There is also a love between two men that few films have dared to attempt to show. I loved it.

CONTAINS SPOILERS!

I really love this film and I dare to say is the best queer movie I've seen in 2016. The plot is simple but the execution is marvelous. The beginning introduce the two main characters in one of the best orgy scenes in the contemporary cinema -yes, with frontal male nudes and explicit sex, but in an artistic and not (so) pornographic way- and then, we assist a very long ride across Paris's streets (I just love movies that show you a city in a simple and non-touristy way, like Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy) with a huge revelation that create the best twist in the movie… and are barely 4:45 a.m. The next hour is full of tension, anxiety, humor and existentialist revelations with the word VIH+ in center of the conflict between Théo and Hugo. The both actors has a chemistry that really you can feel it in the entire movie, with the presence of a few amazing incidental characters that portrait in some ways the social features of Paris. The long conversation that keep Théo close to Hugo has a very theatrical tension that's ends in a lovely and uncertain way ("Then what?"). Definitely, directors and writers Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau knows how to make a romantic tale with the real and actual issues of the gay male community.

Especially the first half hour of the movie contains pornographic images. Then we watch two homosexuals get closer to each other. The strange thing is that two young people who have known each other for an hour and don't know anything about each other, want to live together for a lifetime. One of the young people has HIV, but everything is fine with treatment. Brief information about PEP treatment compressed into a scenario. We learn that the young man who says he is not good with mathematics is a design engineer (?). And this young person doesn't understand what the 0.6% probability means. Another oddity is that a Syrian kebab shop is playing Turkish songs in his shop. I think it would be more realistic if the Syrian was listening to a song in their own language in the background. There aren't many films that shed light on the problems of homosexuals. So it can be appreciated. But I think it's a rushed movie. The scenario could have been stronger.

Being of a certain age this may well be the last true ground-breaking masterpiece that I may see in my lifetime. It is a bookend as it were to another masterpiece, Louis Malle's 'Les Amants'. I saw this when it first came out in 1958. And there are similarities. Both films for their respective times have pushed the boundaries of eroticism in cinema and both have lovers who have met the same day and ended that day with the dawn of their future together. There has been comparison with Agnes Varda's 'Cléo de 5 à 7' but this is only partially relevant, because sexuality does not seal the whole basis of that film. Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Marc Bory fall in love in an 'instant' and that same 'instant' happens to the men in 'Theo et Hugo dans le meme bateau'. Brahms does not overlay this passion, but pounding modern pop music does. It is the music of our time. In both films there are challenges ahead, and both passions may be destroyed by them. What makes this film great along with the Malle is the element of risk that is taken in choosing to follow the path of desire, and truths are said in 'Theo et Hugo' which censorship would not have permitted the lovers in 'Les Amants'. I was amazed at the words and actions in the last extraordinary scene that reveal how love can be born out of the realisation that the sexual organ of the beloved can be loved for itself and is an important component of that love. That in this film it is the male penis that is kissed and adored by the lover will be a sight of revulsion for some, a wonder and a revelation for others. This film like the Malle is deeply Romantic in the highest sense of the word. Instead of the beauty of the night world of the surrounding country side, compared to 'Caspar David Friedrich' and his paintings, in the beautifully filmed 'Les Amants' we have in 'Theo et Hugo' the magically lit streets of Paris, deserted in the early hours of the morning. This is not the Paris of Hollywood, but the ordinary streets around such areas as Stalingrad and Anvers. Places of urban peace where the two characters can explore the dilemma they are in, fight off love and then accept it quite simply because it has happened. I do not want to elaborate on the HIV aspect, because to me it seemed the rock of fate that has to be somehow overcome, just as the adultery and the leaving of a child has to be overcome in 'Les Amants'.

As I have said this is a great film and it saddens me that perhaps so many will not see it, as I believe its audacity, its beauty, its infinite gentleness between two men, will put it there in the Pantheon of films to stand the test of time. Maybe in future years it will be seen as the mountain peak in French cinema that it is.

Unlike some reviewers I think the actors are equal to each other, and in the final scene with its extraordinary intimacy there is a look of bewildered but enchanted delight of Geoffrey Couët's face that surpassed acting. He embodied the giving of love, and that is rare in any film. What he accepted with a look of beauty few actors in the world would accept to do, and I hope he has a great future ahead of him. Theo in all his moods captured my heart, and François Nambot captured my mind that he could dare so much, and push for so much to happen between them. This film is a poem of love.

I gave this movie 4 stars based on the hot orgy scene; however, this film promotes HIV panic. How in the world do you go to a gay sex club located in a dark basement, bareback a stranger's hole and not already be taking PrEP? Then the undetectable bottom gets all dramatic because a negative top penetrated him without a condom and he might have infected him with HIV. He should've panicked about the top possibly giving him many other STIs, but instead, the focus is on undetectable HIV! Absolutely absurd. Then the top panics and becomes angry at the bottom. This is illogical. Did he really go to a sex dungeon and expect everyone to be HIV negative? Then they rush to a hospital to get the top on post-exposure medications. This is one twisted love story that reeks of HIV panic.

The first 20 minutes was pure pornography, plain and simple. It went on far too long. So long that I got incredibly bored at watching. I can understand that setting the scene in the first place with them in the sex club, but not 20 minutes.

Francois Nambot had a more realistic performance than Geoffrey Couet. The performance from Francois was particularly realistic when during the moments immediately learning that Geoffrey's character penetrated him without protection.

Geoffrey Couet's performance on the other hand was unbelievable. Theo was supposed to show the he was scared and anxious about the possibility of contracting HIV, and I just didn't sense that from him. It was lacklustre.

It was also nice to learn that the doctor that gave Theo the PEP treatment was not an actress but an actual doctor.

The sex scene was really the only thing with substance in the movie, and even that was boring after the length of it dragged on.

The problem, for my taste, is that the director does not know the ellipsis among other things that explain. Which makes it boring. Also, the beginning is so explicit that if it had been a movie between a man and a woman like that, everyone would have said, if it took so much sex and so explicit. I have plenty left.

The encounter of them, I find very badly taken, takes me completely out of the film, it is not real. Like when they look directly at camera.

When you walk on the street without talking, when you go on a bike, or inside a building without talking, do you need to see it? Is it essential to see them walk alone? Why was ellipsis invented? They are very well, both of them. And it's a very nice story, although I do not understand those moments of tone, things are spoken and that's it. They look like two really in love, they just met and will spend the rest of their lives together.

He has a beautiful photograph, I take it that shooting at night has helped a lot.

The direction, aside from the actors, is not a marvel. One of his tasks is not to bore and he does not get it, let alone the staging and the camera.

In short, if I had not wasted so much useless time, even if it had been shorter the film would have gained many points. And being less explicit, as I ask any movie, it would have also improved.