Les Nuits Fauves
Savage Nights movie storyline. “I feel I go through life like an American tourist, doing as many towns as possible”, explains Jean, a camera man and aspiring film director. Handsome, but self-centered, childish and hedonistic, he has a complicated sex life. He is bisexual and HIV positive. During a casting session he meets Laura, a lively, eighteen-year-old aspiring actress.
Captivated by her charm, Jean soon is pursuing her and she quickly falls in love with him. They start a passionate affair. At the same time, the restless Jean pursues a relationship with Samy, a young rugby player. Samy, who has emigrated with his mother and brother from Spain, is unemployed and equally troubled. He is straight and although living with his girlfriend, Marianne, he has no qualms about his homoerotic relationship with Jean, who has a big crush on him.
Jean and Laura’s relationship is complicated by him having HIV which initially he hides from her. Only after they have had sex does he tell her. At first, Laura is furious and her mother is equally livid. However, Laura is by then deeply in love with Jean. She not only continues the relationship but refuses to use condoms as Jean wanted.
Jean is also deeply troubled in accepting his disease. “Drop your illusions. Learn from your disease” suggests his friend Noria. Peaceful acceptance does not come easy for him, his life ricochets from one coupling to the next, trying to make sense of his situation. He is a damned rebel, which he defines as, ” Someone marked by fate and with real dignity inside”.
Laura has emotional problems too, at one point she erupts at the owner of the dress shop, where she works and loses her job. Her feelings reach a boiling point in dealing with Jean’s bisexuality that includes not only Jean’s relationship with Samy but anonymous sex with multiple partners in dark cruising spots. In these sex encounters, Jean releases his self-destructive drive and finds refuge from the frustrations brought by his illness and his affairs with Laura and Samy.
As Samy acquires a taste for sadomasochism and violence, he turns to Jean. He moves in with him, leaving Marianne, who angrily berates Jean. After a fight with racist skinheads, Samy finally consummates his relationship with Jean and tells him that he loves him. Laura turns increasingly angry and desperate, disappointed in her relationship with Jean. “Help me to leave you!” is her pathetic cry.
Jean is emotionally closed. After a night out of drinking and partying Jean yells “I want to live” to his friends but mostly he seems in denial that he is dying. The next morning Laura finds him in bed not only with Samy but with his ex-girlfriend. Laura throws a big tantrum and from then on, she leaves endless, long messages on Jean’s answering machine. In some she begs for love, in others she threatens to ruin his life.
Reaching the breaking point, Laura threatens Jean with committing suicide and tells him that he has infected her with HIV. Only then, Jean intervenes and with Laura’s mother they find psychological help for her. Jean repeatedly fails to find meaning in his life. A conversation with his mother is only painful. Returning home, he is involved in car accident. He is as reckless in his sex life as with HIV medication, which he avoids when it interferes with his drinking and partying.
Savage Nights (French: Les Nuits Fauves) is a 1992 French drama film directed and written by Cyril Collard. It stars Collard, Romane Bohringer and Carlos López. The film is an adaptation of Collard’s semi-autobiographical novel Les Nuits Fauves, published in 1989. It won four César Awards including Best Film.
Savage Nights (1993)
Directed by: Cyril Collard
Starring: Cyril Collard, Romane Bohringer, Carlos López, Corine Blue, Claude Winter, Maria Schneider, Marine Delterme, Aïssa Djabri, Jean-Jacques Jauffret
Screenplay by: Cyril Collard, Jacques Fieschi
Production Design by: Jacky Macchi
Cinematography by: Manuel Teran
Film Editing by: Lise Beaulieu
Costume Design by: Régine Arniaud
Set Decoration by: Katja Kosenina, Jacky Macchi
Music by: René-Marc Bini, Cyril Collard
Distributed by: Pan Européenne Distribution
Release Date: March 20, 1993
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